Growing Local Food Markets in the Monadnock Region

20-02-2020

Welcome from Food Connects!

Thanks for learning more about our Growing Local Food Markets in the Monadnock Region campaign. We are so excited to be live and cannot wait to see all the community support!

Today our Food Hub Manager, Julicia Myers, and Marketing Manager, Laura Carbonneau, joined Chef Luca Paris and Dan Mitchell on WKBK to talk about what we do and our campaign. Stream the show online now!

We are so grateful to our reward sponsors, Frisky Cow Gelato and Sprague & Son Sugarhouse, for offering great rewards to our campaign supporters. Be on the look out for more rewards coming your way.

Lastly, we are excited to announce that the Monadnock Food Co-op chose us to be the recipients of the month-long Round Up campaign for March. Ask the cashiers to Round Up your change at the register to support this campaign.

25-02-2020

Round Up Your Change in March!

Last night we unlocked our first milestone in our Growing Local Food Markets in the Monadnock Region campaign—$500! Thank you to our earliest supporters. We are excited to announce some new rewards including shirts from Bulldog Design, products from Jack’s Crackers, and a co-working memberships to The Hannah Grimes Center for Entrepreneurship. Check out these great new rewards and please be sure to share this campaign with your friends, families, neighbors, and coworkers. Tell them how they can help local farms grow and these amazing rewards!

Exciting News:

If you live in the Keene, NH area or are just planning a visit, be sure to stop by the Monadnock Food Co-op. During the entire month of March you can ask you round up your change at the register to the nearest dollar. All the round up funds for the month will be dedicated to this campaign! It is an easy way to support local farms and a local store. And be sure to spread the words to your friends in the Keene community.

Have questions about how you can be involved in this campaign? Let us know!

07-03-2020

We're Growing and Growing!

Our campaign continues to grow! We are so grateful to all of our 26 donor for getting to almost 20% of our total goal! As always, please be sure to donate to this campaign if you have not already and share it with anyone you know who loves local food!

On Tuesday, we hosted our 2020 Local Food Trade Show. 30 local food producers and farmers joined us at the beautiful Stonewall Farm in Keene, NH to spend the afternoon promoting amazing and delicious local foods to over 50 wholesale customers in the region. Our Local Food Trade Show is one of the many ways we aim to grow local food markets.

Didn’t get to attend the event? Check out pictures on Facebook. But fair warning, some will make your mouth water!

11-03-2020

And we're live!

Our campaign is officially launched to the public! We are so excited to share this work with our community.

We want to send a HUGE thank you to all of our donors to getting us to over 38% of the way to our goal. We are thrilled to announce that that first week of our Round Up at the Monadnock Food Co-op raised over $1,500! We are so overwhelmed by the generosity of our community. Your support for local food will help farmers grow their markets and improve our local food economy. We know with your help we will be able to reach our goal of $10,000!

We just added Adventure Park Passes from Bromley Mountian to our rewards list. Be on the look out for more rewards in the next week.

And as always, please share this campaign with your networks. We challenge you to share this campaign with 5 friends, family members, or co-workers this week!

19-03-2020

We're Stronger Together!

We know that these are trying times for our community. Local businesses and food producers are struggling with the loss of sales. Now, more than ever, it is critical that we support and grow local food infrastructure. Resilient local food economies can weather the storm.

In light of the outbreak of COVID-19, we wanted to share with you what Food Connects continues to do to keep our communities safe, support local food producers, and feed our neighbors. Our Food Hub is working diligently to modify and reduce our direct contact with customers and producers, limiting the amount of exposure we have with individuals to ensure the safety of our staff, customers, producers, and the food we provide—while still getting food to grocery stores and school meal programs providing breakfast and lunch to hungry students. Our larger Food Connects team is telecommuting and working with local and statewide partners to respond to the needs of our community and provide vital resources and assistance.

We want to thank those who have supported our campaign to get us to over 40% of our goal. We ask that you continue to share and support this campaign to help us achieve our goals of healthy families, thriving farms, and connects communities.

In the meantime, we ask that you continue to be a champion for local food. Ordering takeout or delivery from local restaurants helps them stay in business. Purchasing locally-grown produce at your neighboring co-op ensures that farms in our region can still thrive. Donating to food banks, school meal programs, and other meal delivery service non-profits guarantees our neighbors are not hungry.

25-03-2020

Frisky Cow Support Food Connects!

Wow! We hit 75% of our goal this week! Thank you so much to all of our donors and reward sponsors for making this possible. Please continue to share this campaign and if you haven’t donated yet, there is still time!

Amid the growing national concerns around COVID-19, we are seeing strong response to support our local businesses and food producers. Our campaign is one of the many ways that you can ensure that we strengthen our local food economy. Resiliency is created by working together.

Knowing this, we wanted to take a step back and share with you a story from one of our producers. Linda Rubin, owner of Frisky Cow Gelato, wants to grow her local business. Hear from Linda, how our Growing Local Food Markets in the Monadnock Region campaign will help her reach her goals.

03-04-2020

Matching Challenge in Place!

Can you believe it? We are already at 81% of our goal! We are closing in fast on $10,000 and still have until April 18. Thank you so much to each and every one of you who have supported our campaign so far. Our staff is working incredibly hard right now to keep our community feed and we are humbled by your generosity and support for the local food economy. Check out how packed our cooler was this week with local food!

We are excited to announce a matching challenge, now active on our campaign site! The Monadnock Food Co-op will match each donation to the Food Connects crowdfunding campaign dollar for dollar up to $500. We are so grateful for the co-op and everything they continue to do to make this campaign a huge success and provide healthy food options for our community.

Can we match all $500 this weekend? Share this with your friends, family, coworkers, and neighbors to unlock this next goal.

09-04-2020

Shop for a cause!

First of all… WOW and thank you! We knocked our $500 matching challenge from the Monadnock Food Co-op out of the park. This incredible out pouring of support got us to 92% of our goal today, with just about 1 week left. We are already putting these funds to good use. We have new shelving up in our cooler to help accommodate the large influx of local food we are delivering and our Integrated Pest Management program is set up and in full gear.

We also have some exciting new from our friends at the Hannah Grimes Marketplace. Their online market is now open and from April 9-15 they will donate 20% of their sales to our campaign. Hannah Grimes features locally produced gift and food, great to share with friends and family. They are currently doing curbside pickups in Keene, NH, so place your order today! And a huge thank you to their amazing staff!

16-04-2020

We did it!

We did it!

Yesterday we hit $10,00 and we couldn’t have done it without you. We are so grateful to our community supporters and reward sponsors for helping us get this far. We will start using these funds to help us improve our food safety infrastructure. We’re already seeing record sales this month and are confident that our markets will continue to grow thanks to this campaign.

Haven’t gotten a chance to participate yet? There’s still time to donate! Help us unlock our stretch goals to obtain stainless tables for a portable pallet jack. Or claim some of the AMAZING rewards still available on our page.

Lastly, a huge thank you to the Hannah Grimes Marketplace for donating 20% of their sales to us last week, totaling over $130!

18-05-2020

One Month Later...

Wow! Can you believe it’s been one month since we completed our campaign? We can’t!

We are so grateful for each and everyone of you for supporting local food systems in our region. We are moved by the tenacity of our communities and how individuals are banding together to continue to shop locally. COVID-19 has shaken us to the core and is proving that resilient local food economies can feed our friends, families, and neighbors.

We’ve been quite busy during this time. We’ve launched a Curbside Pickup program for households, hired a new Sales Associate, partnered with local organizations to feed families, and saw a 263% increase, year over year, in sales for the month of April.