Local Foods Connection Pays Its Farmers!

Every year, LFC decides how many CSA shares it will purchase from the farms serving Iowa City, Cedar Rapids and Des Moines. The number of shares we purchase depends on our fundraising success throughout the past 6-7 months. This year, we are purchasing shares from:

Iowa City:

• Echollective Farm
• Gooseberry Hill Farm
• Grinnell Heritage Farm
• Local Harvest Farm
• Oak Hill Acres Farm
• Plan B Farm

Cedar Rapids:

• Grinnell Heritage Farm
• Local Harvest CSA

Des Moines:

• One Step At A Time Gardens
• The Homestead

The total cost of these CSA shares is approximately $23,000.00. We have budgeted an additional ~$1,000 to spend at such farms as Wilson’s Apple Orchard, Fae Ridge Farm and Sass Family Farm, for when we take clients for visits, as well as at farmers markets.

The next step in the process is to determine how many clients we can serve with the budgeted number of CSA shares. We are planning to enroll 41 families and 12 agencies. The agencies include Matthew 25 Ministry Hub (Cedar Rapids), HACAP (Iowa City and Cedar Rapids), Domestic Violence Shelter (Iowa City) and the Free Medical Clinic (Iowa City).

The third step is to allocate family ‘slots’ to our referring sponsors. Sponsors are social service agencies, medical offices and religious institutions that recommend families to our program. Sponsors have no financial obligations; their main responsibility is to find appropriate families for our program and to help us keep in contact with the referred families throughout the growing season. Agencies that our referring to our client families to our program include:

2010 Sponsors

• ARC of Southeast Iowa
• Elder Services Office at Ecumenical Towers
• Free Medical Clinic
• Hills Elementary Family Resource Center
• Lucas Elementary Family Resource Center
• Mercy Hospital, Cedar Rapids, Center for Fit Families
• Neighborhood Centers of Johnson County
• Waukee Area Christian Food Pantry

Local Foods Connection is self-sponsoring several families. These are families who once had a third-party sponsor, but who moved on from that agency or that agency is no longer sponsoring families to our program.

We put the first installment of payments to our farmers in the mail today! Thanks to Caroline Gottschalk-Druschke, LFC Board Chair; Dana Foster, LFC Board Treasurer, and Laura Dowd, Executive Director, for working through our Sponsor-Client-Farmer-Budget worksheets!