Well overdue & ripe for the picking....perhaps over ripe!

Wow…. It’s hard to believe an entire year has slipped by since our last update. As the growing season approaches its peak, we are busy supporting the Vermont Gleaning Collective and preparing for another season of processing Vermont Commodity Products.

We are so excited to share that an anonymous donor has returned to Salvation Farms and they have put $10,000 on the table, accessible only with your help.

“Salvation Farms is at the forefront of a movement to recover millions of pounds of food for those who are hungry — food that otherwise would be discarded or would rot in the fields. Please join us in supporting this visionary project; we will match your contribution dollar for dollar!” – Anonymous Donor

We have until August 31^st to make the match – can you help us rise to the challenge?Donate online or send a donation by snail mail to: PO Box 1174, Morrisville VT 05661

Thank You Volunteers! You helped us quickly send word of this challenge out to our community – five of you addressed envelopes and another five folded, stuffed, and stamped. We had rollicking fun at the “stamping party” in our brand-new office.

As of July, Salvation Farms made its home-base on Portland Street in Morrisville, a space we share with RSVP of Lamoille Valley. Freshly painted mint-green walls and new-to-us furniture (from our Re-Source store neighbors) furnish the narrow room that was previously an iconic barbershop in town. RSVP has proven a natural partner; we are empowered by the possibilities of this space. Nearly every day we meet a new neighbor, forge new connections, foster old ones, and grow stronger as a team; its a milestone in the evolution of our organization.

Along with rooting ourselves into a cozy little office our team is growing. Laurel Ferland joined Salvation Farms, as an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer, and will assist us in building the Vermont Commodity Program’s capacity. Additionally, we’ve been blessed by Marcella’s decision to extend her VISTA service by six months. We are growing into a solid team… and we are in the midst of interviewing candidates for our first full-time program director position.

Our board has also grown. Two new members have been successfully recruited, John Mandeville and Chip Conquest. It is a compliment to have them in this very important and supportive role. Earlier this year we were granted, through the Vermont Housing & Conservation Board’s Farm Viability Program, the help of a business development consultant, Rose Wilson. She has been extremely helpful in the process of establishing a plan to move Salvation Farms strategically forward.

A substantial project underway is the building renovation at the Southeast State Correctional Facility – watch the video below. Salvation Farms has been working closely with the Vermont Department of Corrections,Department of Buildings & General Services, and the Vermont Architects Collaborative in designing the renovation and determining construction costs.

We will glean corn from the seed production fields at High Mowing Organic Seeds this season. We have coordinated with the Vermont Foodbank to ensure none of the estimated 3,000 pounds of corn available for gleaning goes to waste. Post-glean, we are organizing a group of UVM Service TREK volunteers to minimally process and freeze a portion of the corn at the Vermont Food Venture Center as part of the Vermont Commodity Program’s continued product development work.

After last year’s pilot with the Rutland Area Farm and Food Link (RAFFL), the Vermont Gleaning Collective has expanded to include four organizations spanning four VT counties (plus Washington County, NY). Member Organizations of the Vermont Gleaning Collective include RAFFL, Burlington’s Intervale Center, Addison County’s HOPE (Helping Overcome Poverty’s Effects) and Washington County’s new Community Harvest of Central Vermont.

In the past six months Salvation Farms has completed three significant achievements for the Vermont Gleaning Collective. First, Jess Parker was hired temporarily and with great success she helped Theresa finalize the Collective’s Operations Manual. Second, the Members of the Collective supported Salvation Farms through the drafting, refining and adopting of governing documents. And, our third accomplishment is the Gleaners Interface, an online platform designed to streamline and standardize the way volunteers register, how coordinators announce gleans and how we track gleaning data statewide.

We launched the Gleaners Interface this spring and have had more than 150 volunteers registered across the state. We hope you will register as a gleaner today!

This platform was born from Salvation Farms’ vision for a collaborative, statewide approach to scaling up gleaning activities and first came to life at the Random Hacks of Kindness “Hack-a-thon” conference in Burlington in 2012. Building the Gleaners Interface has proved to be a detailed process, as we learned over our continued collaborations with developer Timothy Clifford. Tim’s work has truly shaped the platform into the tool it is today, and his unending patience and focus is to be applauded. Thank you Tim!

 "Working with Salvation Farms on the Gleaners Interface was one of the best professional decisions I've made. The underlying technologies that drive the Interface are used in businesses across the board, and working this extensively has opened up many options for my own business. The Interface itself is a tool for gleaners to coordinate throughout Vermont, and the powerful technologies leveraged to do that will massively change the way food is reclaimed around the state." – Tim Clifford, Gleaners Interface Developer