Summer Growth at NCFA
Dear Friends and Supporters,
Summer came in like a lion this year! While the weather has been hot and dry, the NCFA gardens are still flourishing under tender care, and local farmers continue to grow plenty of surplus produce for our gleaning program. Read below for more details on what we’ve been up to!
In Solidarity for a Better World,
Haakon, Mae, Will, Sasha, Alison, May, Catherine, Mark, Bozena, Nick, Celeste, Maria, Noah, Fatuma
(The Workers of NCFA)
Program Updates
Foodshare
It’s been an exciting quarter for our foodshare program! More and more of our fellow workers are helping share the load as we continue to make connections and spread fresh food across the Twin Cities. New workers May and Celeste are now joining us in the office and in the field—growing our foodshare staff to five people. They bring their local food connections and expertise to our gleaning and food purchasing programs, establishing partnerships with new farms as well as Twin Cities organizations that provide food services.
NCFA workers and volunteers gleaning excess produce at Dream of Wild Health Farm.
Cocoa Butta Futures is one of these organizations. They are a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) mutual aid collective that previously ran a food distribution out of a Minnehaha Avenue coffeeshop, and recently reopened their pantry at RARE Productions on Lake Street. NCFA provides them with gleaned and rescued food as well as equipment—something we’ve been eager to get back to since they were forced to conclude operations at their former space several months ago.
Finally, we’d like to thank Hunger Solutions for awarding us over $65,000 in grant funds last year, which we only recently finished spending. We used this money to purchase culturally relevant food for residents of Charles Horn Towers and the Korean Service Center. It also went toward food that Southside Harm Reduction turned into community meals to feed hundreds of our unhoused neighbors several times every week. In addition, this grant money allowed us to purchase fridges and freezers for Native American Community Clinic, Brothers Empowered, Cocoa Butta Futures, F12 People's Kitchen, The Phillips Free Store, and Walker Church.
We welcome your help at our upcoming gleaning events! More dates may be added as we continue to schedule with farms, so check out the schedule and sign up using the link below.
Garden
Garden in a Box beds at the Charles Horn Towers garden.
Our community garden at Charles Horn Towers now boasts 18 circular raised beds, generously donated to us through the Garden in a Box program run by the Minnesota State Horticultural Society! These beds are stewarded by NCFA and the produce from them will be donated to Horn Towers residents. Meanwhile, the Somali American Farmers Association (SAFA) and Horn Towers residents are taking care of the large rectangular raised beds built by NCFA as well as a large area of crops growing directly out of the soil. The growing space at this garden is now double what it was last year, thanks to the combined efforts of NCFA and SAFA!
With SAFA stewarding much of the space, we aren’t currently in need of volunteer help at this site. The plan is for SAFA to completely take over operations next year. While in some ways it will be sad to say goodbye to this garden, it will be a major success to hand it over to a community organization with cultural ties to the residents.
Neighbors harvesting produce at the North Minneapolis community garden.
NCFA workers and volunteers are busy keeping the plant babies happy and healthy at our North Minneapolis community garden. It’s abundant with greens, cucumbers, squash, fresh herbs, green tomatoes, peppers, and more! Folks from the neighborhood are enjoying the fresh produce, which is all free for community members to eat. Garden Coordinator May facilitates garden harvests with neighbors on Saturdays, showing them what’s ready and helping with picking and washing, if desired. She is also there most Tuesdays to harvest food for the distribution at Shiloh Temple, a church in the neighborhood.
If you’re interested in helping with harvests or other garden tasks, please contact May at garden@ncfa-mn.org.
Other Updates
Grants
We’d like to extend a huge thank you to the Wedge and Linden Hills Co-ops for selecting NCFA as the recipient of their Change Matters program for June. Round ups at the register raised $10,409.45 for NCFA! Additionally, Jonny Pops will be donating $602.42 and Big Watt will be donating $201.90, for a grand total of $11,213.77 from the June Change Matters program! We are so thankful for the wonderful support.
As if that weren’t special enough, Lakewinds Food Co-op selected us for their Community Giving Round Up for the month of July! Customers at all three Lakewinds locations graciously rounded up their purchases to the nearest dollar, raising $16,527.50! It’s amazing what collective community support can do. We’re so appreciative of Lakewinds and all the generous shoppers!
Meet Our New Worker!
Noah - Canvasser
Noah has worked in local food systems for years, gardening, working farmers markets, and pulling up weeds all over New York and Minnesota. In their free time, Noah likes to study history, play music, and hang out with friends by the lake.
NCFA is Hiring
We’re hiring canvassers! Come work for your favorite worker-run nonprofit, or recommend us to a friend. We’d love to have you join our team!
Support Our Work
Your participation is integral to maintaining our expanded level of programming! The majority of our revenue comes from individual donors. We rely on your contributions to increase land access through community gardening, strengthen the local food system with direct purchasing from small farms, and distribute thousands of pounds of food for free every week. Thank you for your generosity and on-going support!