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Taking Action in the Adirondacks
639 Plays3 years ago
In this episode of the Direct Farm Podcast, we sit down with ADK Action, a non-profit organization committed to improving the lives of the residents of the Adirondacks in Northern New York. Through various projects, including their Fair Food Program, ADK Action works to revitalize communities, promote artists, and improve quality of life by connecting families to local Farmers throughout the Adirondack park.
adkaction.org
barn2door.com/resources
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Transcript
Introduction to the Direct Farm Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Direct Farm podcast, the go-to resource for farms across the US looking to grow and manage their business. Tune in weekly to hear tips and tactics from our most successful farmers on how to increase sales, access more customers, and save time and money. We'll also speak with industry experts, business leaders, and partners to share the latest farm business trends selling direct to market.
00:00:27
Speaker
Welcome to the Direct Farm podcast. I'm Rory, your host for today's episode.
ADK Action's Mission and Origins
00:00:31
Speaker
We've got a great conversation for you today with ADK Action. ADK Action is an organization engaged in multiple projects, addressing unmet needs, promoting vibrant communities, and preserving the natural beauty of their adderondacks for all.
00:00:45
Speaker
Some of their projects include the fair food program, where they provide funding for members to purchase farm products. They also run the reducing road salt program, where they're combating pollution in lakes and streams that feed into local drinking water and their compost for good program, where they aim to help Adirondack communities turn food and organic waste into compost. I'm delighted to welcome Kerry crowning shield, their food security consultant, as well as Hannah growl, the food security projects coordinator. Welcome Kerry and Hannah. Thanks so much for joining us on the podcast today.
00:01:15
Speaker
And thanks for having us. Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah. I'm really excited to dive in because you guys have kind of reached out to Barnador a while back and looking into your guys's organization. We were just blown away by one, all the work that you guys are doing. Um, and so I'm excited to dive into those with you, but to start out, Hannah, could you maybe just tell us a little bit about the origins of 80 K action? Yeah, sure thing.
00:01:38
Speaker
So ADK Action started back in 2007 when a group of about 30 Adirondack residents started meeting in their living rooms and discussing different environmental and community challenges.
00:01:50
Speaker
And from there, the group continued to work on various different projects for the communities in the Adirondacks. And eventually the group became a 501c3 in early 2011. Basically the group started as just a group of very passionate community members that wanted to leave the Adirondacks better than they found it. And I think that still holds true today.
00:02:10
Speaker
That's really cool that it was such a grassroots kind of movement, too, that people were there. I was going to ask, too, why the focus on the Adirondacks? And I guess it's very evident that these were people from this community. But what were some of the needs that weren't being met? And what were some of those early goals?
00:02:29
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So like you said, the focus was Adirondacks because many of the folks in the group were Adirondack residents. They lived in these communities where they recognized that some needs that were not being met. When the organization began, some of the critical issues that they addressed were expanding broadband access throughout the park. It's very rural up here. So that's something that's continually been an issue for folks, as well as I believe one of the original projects was also the reducing road salt and managing our roadways throughout the winter. And then
00:02:58
Speaker
fair property assessments for both local and seasonal residents of the region. So fair tax assessments of properties. Yeah, definitely. Those are some kind of big things to be tackling right out of the gate, but that's awesome that they did. I'm curious how things kind of changed and how has the organization grown since those early days?
Growth and Focus Areas of ADK Action
00:03:19
Speaker
Yeah, since 2007, I'd say ADCaction has grown quite a bit. Started off as just a board of directors, that group that originally founded the organization. But in 2015, ADCaction hired its first full-time paid executive director. And now in 2022, we still have our full board of directors.
00:03:38
Speaker
and a staff of four team members. We also have consultants and interns that join our group at different times throughout the year, depending on project needs or different grants we might get. I mentioned some of the original projects and some of those have stayed, for example, the reducing road salt and working on expanding broadband access throughout the area.
00:03:57
Speaker
Some of our other focus areas are community revitalization. We now focus on our community arts festival that we have every year, supporting native pollinator habitat and species, community composting, which you mentioned before, and of course food security. I know it all sounds like a lot when you spell it all out like that, we've got like six different project areas, but it really boils down to
00:04:21
Speaker
three main focus areas, which are environmental stewardship, vibrant and connected communities, and then our food security work.
00:04:29
Speaker
That's really cool. And yeah, I guess it does all kind of come down to those things, but you are doing a lot. It's really impressive. And to hear that there's only four full-time employees, that's incredible. So I'm sure there's been a lot of really great challenges and great things that have happened since the origins in 2007. What would you say have been some of the best progress highlights or some of the big accomplishments since then?
Adaptation During COVID-19
00:04:52
Speaker
Yeah, I think, and Carrie, feel free to jump in too. But I think that.
00:04:57
Speaker
All of our project areas have huge accomplishments. I could rattle them off, but I guess we can focus more on food security. It started as just a small project. We're trying to get local food into a storefront of a town that didn't have a grocery store anymore. And that has evolved and that program's continued, but it's involved to many different projects. For example, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, we started an emergency food packages program and
00:05:24
Speaker
I think just the ability of our organization to adapt to those changing needs in our communities is what makes it really unique and that's where like kind of our high points are I guess. So, like I said, I could write a lot of often like a lot of different pieces of our projects that have been highlights, but we could be here all day.
00:05:45
Speaker
I was going to say, I could think too, like, I think the evolution of the organization too is just like, because it is a small, such a small team, it's like bringing on the right collaborators and partners that are doing similar work or complimentary work within the park is helpful too. I was first engaged with 80K Action as a, I worked in a land trust world and, um, there was a, one of the early projects of, that Hannah mentioned that 80K Action, initially it was just like protecting monarch butterflies. It was like pretty dialed down and over time as like,
00:06:15
Speaker
conversations about pollinators and pollinator decline and habitat needs and restrictions changed over time. That was a decision to reach out and kind of expand it from a monarch protection program to all pollinators within that Aaronic Park and bringing on folks that were doing similar or complimentary work. And that I think has been a really big success as well for 80K Action to kind of, you know, get away with only having 14 members so that we could
Fair Food Program and Local Collaboration
00:06:43
Speaker
kind of utilize the information base throughout other not-for-profits and municipalities and stuff like that to kind of expand and improve the work that's being done.
00:06:53
Speaker
Yeah, it sounds like it's been a very gradual and natural kind of growth that had started like Hannah was saying in the living room and has grown into a team of people and bringing on more to help with different projects. It's really cool how this is all kind of developed. And like we've talked about, there's all these different projects that you guys are running simultaneously, but the one that I really wanted to dive into today and the one that you're both pretty heavily involved in is the Fair Food Program.
00:07:21
Speaker
So Carrie, what was the inspiration for starting this program? So as Hannah mentioned, initially the director and the organization base was out of a small, one small community that about 15 years ago, now the one grocery store that had been there for many years shut down and it left that community, my community actually, I'm part of that. We have to drive 20 to 30 minutes to get to the nearest grocery store. So.
00:07:47
Speaker
It was trying to think about like how to utilize unused storefronts or just again, look at those different partnerships and see where we could get to the different work. And the idea was to look at the local pharmacy, approached them that had a, you know, a viable storefront location that was established and established business and then bring in an FAR, a pharmacy where he could bring in some great products from local farms that were really within like a
00:08:15
Speaker
three mile radius of the main front, main street in the community. But it was far enough away where if you didn't have the transportation to get there, you wouldn't be able to access it. So that initial project really expanded out too. And I think it just kind of opened everybody's eyes to realize that there are, we have such great resources here in the Adirondacks, lots of local farms doing great work. And a lot of people that don't have access for, you know, variety of different reasons, whether it be
00:08:44
Speaker
know, cost or transportation, time, you know, variety of different things to be able to access them. Instead, we're having to go to large grocery stores or chains to bring in foods that could be grown locally, but you can't get there. And that comes to the core of the work that we do in the food security program. It's like,
00:09:03
Speaker
How do we get this great food that we have locally into the hands of those that need it most? Looking to the local farms as part of that, you know, benefits the economy and benefits local farmers. They're great, healthy, nutritious foods. So it's really looking at a holistic view of food access work.
00:09:23
Speaker
I'm curious because obviously when you're going with local farms, you are getting a lot of those benefits that you just mentioned. But typically there oftentimes is a cheaper option of where you can source food from just because all those great things that you just mentioned better practices, it's you're supporting local economy. Typically all these farms are
00:09:42
Speaker
doing better practices for the earth and kind of better for the environment as well. But some of those things come with additional costs. So why did you guys choose to go with these local farms? And I guess as a part two to that question, what is the role that farms are now playing in this program? Yeah. I mean, we really focused on local farms because we're engaged in the work just like on a personal level. I think we work with them on a variety of other projects, like again, road salt and composting and
00:10:10
Speaker
It was just like the recognition that if we need to feed our neighbors, might as well, might as well come from our neighbors. You know, that's an important piece, but like you said, it comes with increased costs oftentimes. And that was kind of the void that we could fill or like, how can we as an organization fundraise to highlight this issue? And it was like one approach to be able to get there. And really having this participation with local farmers was a key piece to it. We found after starting these conversations with local farmers, like
00:10:39
Speaker
They would prefer to sell their goods locally and feed their neighbors if they could, but as like a small farm, it's hard to the time to market and to deliver or to distribute these products. And that's something that we thought we would be able to work on and get there. So Hannah mentioned it started with the emergency food packages program during COVID-19 early on. There was a really big recognition. As we mentioned, it's a pretty rural geographic that we serve and people were concerned about going to, you know,
00:11:09
Speaker
bigger towns to go grocery shopping and a lot of the smaller stores were shutting down because of the staffing issues or whatever. So we partnered with a local food hub where there was already this established distribution pattern in relationship with local farmers.
00:11:25
Speaker
And we just helped to kind of provide the end users for it. We knew there were people that were really interested in needing these foods and we could support the farmers who were losing some revenue because of COVID-19, because of storefronts or whatever closing down and helping another local food hub to get off their feet with this great idea and prioritizing local organic or organic like practices and sustainable farms and also feeding our neighbors. So from that really evolved this larger
00:11:54
Speaker
program where we said, aside from COVID-19, there's still a major issue going on. And that's the really, the impetus, keeping it all local is it's a really appealing thing to reach out to funders for and being like, there's X number of families that we can feed and with your support, we can do that. And the initial fundraising campaign, Hannah can speak to that because she was directly engaged in that outreach, but goals were met super quickly with like these GoFundMe type of campaigns, like
00:12:22
Speaker
It wasn't just larger philanthropic organizations or foundations. It was neighbors feeding neighbors directly through one-off donations and continual donations. I'll just add that, like I said before, it's just a really unique part of ADK actions, being able to pivot when there's emergencies and needs in our communities, such as the pandemic. And it was just really incredible to see the support from everyone in the community, like
00:12:50
Speaker
No matter how small or bigger donation was everyone was chipping in and it was pretty neat to see a lot of people got stimulus checks during coven 19 and actually a lot of people just donated their direct full stimulus check to our program which was
00:13:05
Speaker
pretty remarkable to be a part of. So yeah, that, that
Impact on Participants and Community
00:13:09
Speaker
was just the beginning of where our fair food program is now. Yeah, that's really cool. And so with that initial kind of emergency food program, being the origins, I'm curious when you started reaching out to farmers about this, about that program, as well as the food program that you're doing now, what was kind of the response from farmers when you would reach out? Yeah, it was pretty immediate. Like they all wanted
00:13:33
Speaker
They were like, that's an amazing idea. Being able to expand their clientele to folks within the community was super appealing. And yeah, I mean, it wasn't, there wasn't a whole lot of, no, that's not for me. It was like, it was an absolutely, I'm on board. How can I help? How can I spread the word? It's been great. And really the evolution of the emergency food packages to the Fair Food Program. It, again, like most other projects that we've worked on, it's an evolution over time. It initially started as, like you said, the
00:14:03
Speaker
emergency food packages where we'd worked with like larger organizations that could identify the folks in the community that these free food packages and then there were complete food packages like complete meals for the week and some prepared meals. They had identified the folks that were most in need of that and we expanded that out to once
00:14:24
Speaker
could start doing around a little bit more and the year of the emergency food packages was winding down we're like how can we make this a more sustainable program. So it started off as you know to looking at local farmers markets and working with local farmers and being like hey we could provide discounts too and you know it's a lot of it is based on low and middle income levels and also the number of folks in the household. So if we could
00:14:52
Speaker
Identify folks again that are still in need that could benefit from a reduced price discount on local farm products. Is this something that you'd be able to do? Like, would you be okay accepting a coupon and us sending you reimbursements once a month? And again, it was, there were so many people that were engaged and involved with that. We started off with just working into local farmers markets, kind of on a smaller pilot scale for last year and found a great response and people really liked it.
00:15:20
Speaker
a piece of it too is getting folks maybe that aren't typically engaged with, you know, direct farm sales, like at farmer's markets or farm stands, getting them out there. That was another piece of it. It's like expanding that, that kind of buying experience and getting that engagement into the local food economy that we, again, found was really important. And, um, from there we did surveys and community engagement and vendor engagement and
00:15:46
Speaker
The evolution of that was to say, well, it's hard to as an organization plan year to year, not knowing how much funding we would need to fill varied amounts of discount coupons that were going out. And it was a little clunky with the reimbursement process, which was important for us, for farmers to get the prices at the time, at the point of sale, to collect all the money at the point of sale. So that's how it involved to our current system where we're distributing funding every month to those same families.
00:16:16
Speaker
But providing, you know, dollar amounts are comparable to the discounts that they were receiving. Except now you've expanded to more farmers, more firm stands, mixed market vendors, hubs and co-ops where folks can go out and have the choice of what they want to spend and have a little more freedom with the time of, you know, if they can't make a farmer's market or something like that, they can go to a farm stand and shop and have the money to do so.
00:16:45
Speaker
Yeah. And this is, this was where learning about you guys. And when you guys have reached out to us about, about working together, I was like, man, this is the coolest program ever. Because I love just one, the work that you guys are doing is so awesome and obviously so necessary in the community, but also then that you're not just providing these participants with the food that they need, but that it can be locally sourced and support the farmers as well. Like you said,
00:17:10
Speaker
probably rather be serving their community and providing them the food anyways. I'm curious, how have participants of the program reacted when they getting access to all this awesome locally grown food? Yeah, I'll let Hannah win this too. Cause this is like the best part of our work I feel, but, um, I mean, it's just like so much excitement. They're like, are you sure it's meant for me?
00:17:32
Speaker
And that's kind of one of those heartbreaking questions where it's like, it's meant for everybody. Like we all should be able to like eat the great carrots that our neighbor 10 miles away produces. And it seems like such a small thing to think about, but it's huge for families. We hear from people that, you know, they have medical conditions or their families have medical conditions where they want to, you know, switch to a local or more organic type diet, but they don't have the funds to do it in our programs.
00:18:00
Speaker
are allowing that to happen and it really can make like substantive change and how people feel and live on a day-to-day basis. And that's just like an amazing thing to be part of. Yeah, I totally agree. And one of the really cool things about where our program is now is that all the funds for these families are loaded onto a Visa co-branded debit card. So basically they can go and shop just like anyone else at any market and all they do is swipe their card, which is I think pretty
00:18:31
Speaker
pretty unique for our program. And it takes away a lot of the stigma and maybe hesitation that people might have had in the past of going to a farmer's market or somewhere where they're uncomfortable. And then they have to wait in line with their coupons. And then the farmer has to go through that discount process while there's a line of folks waiting. So I think that's been a really, really strong point of the product program from both the participant side and also our farm vendors, which has been great.
00:18:58
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I mean, that's got to be a huge benefit to any participant and to the farmer that it's so much easier for them. I mean, it's for the farmers, just like taking any other payment, which is really awesome. I love the way that you guys have kind of chosen to go about this program. I was curious, Hannah, I know earlier you were like, I could start rattling off numbers and some of the great accomplishments that you guys have had. What is the progress of this program so far? How many participants are there? Where have you guys kind of gotten with this?
00:19:23
Speaker
Yeah. So right now we have, I believe it's 75 households and over 180 folks that are being served in the program. And we've kept it at that amount so far, just to make sure we can fund those 75 households for a continued amount of time into the future. But hopefully as more funding allows and we go forward with the program that we can continue expanding to more and more folks throughout the region.
00:19:49
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I'll be excited to hear how that continues to grow. And I know you've also kind of worked with like this, almost like CSA side of the program as well with like the farm boxes, I guess. What is that part of things and how is it kind of played into this as well?
Challenges and Solutions in Program Delivery
00:20:06
Speaker
Yeah, so another part of our food security work is called the Fair Share Program. And through this program, we are providing CSA boxes to over a hundred families in the Adirondacks. And these CSA shares are completely free to the families who are a part of our program, but we do pay the farmers full costs for these CSAs. And basically the idea started back in 2021. We had a really generous
00:20:35
Speaker
donor that came in and wanted to provide CSAs for families in the area. And that year it started with 20 households. And then we, that went really well the first year. And then the next year, the donor wanted to do it again. And we actually ended up doubling the amount of money by matching what was donated and we're able to provide for a hundred families. So this summer we had a hundred families enrolled in CSA shares from three different farms in our area.
00:21:03
Speaker
And it was a really wonderful program. Some of our foreign partners are so excited that they wanted to continue the shares through the fall for the folks who are involved. So a lot of folks are still receiving awesome, bountiful shares of food through this fall.
00:21:17
Speaker
That's so cool. And this is totally separate from the other program, correct? So this is a hundred other families that are getting these CSAs. Wow. That's, I mean, yeah, that's just so cool. I just love that the path of local and sustainably raised food is kind of the way that you're going about all of this, which is really awesome to hear. I think one of the coolest things about the CSA program is like,
00:21:40
Speaker
The three farms that we are engaged with provide the shares in like three different ways. So traditionally like CSAs, you would, you know, go to the farm and then pick up your boxes, which is the case with one of our CSA partners. But in the Anirondacks, one of the big issues, you know, people might have the money to purchase a CSA share, but like they don't live near a farm or they don't have access to it to get there. So.
00:22:04
Speaker
One of our farms actually provides delivery service, which is like massive. It's huge, especially here in a rural area. And then one of the other farms, they provide like a preloaded card. They can go to one of a number of any markets that they frequent and at different locations throughout the park. And they have, you know, a set amount of money for the entire season and they can purchase as much as they, or as little as they want at any time. So like offering that choice to, you know,
00:22:32
Speaker
The variety of options for people, but again, a big portion with our food security work is like recognizing that a lot of times the way that supplemental food is offered to folks is a non-choice issue. It's like you get what you get and it's really important for us to like, in some instances that's the case, but choice is a really big component of the work that we do and recognizing that just because you need doesn't mean that you don't have preferences. So I think that's a really a strong point to the CSA program in particular.
00:23:01
Speaker
Yeah, that's really cool. That's a great, again, that's just that you guys are thinking through all this and making it such a great program for the participants on kind of on all sides. I'm sure throughout a lot of this growth and change, I'm sure there's been all kinds of challenges and hiccups that you guys have run into. What have some of those been and maybe how have you worked through those? Yeah. So I think it's just the growing pains of, you know, Hannah and I have chatted a lot. Like we want to do massive things all at once. And it's realizing that.
00:23:30
Speaker
You know, we're limited by funding. We're limited by just having to get all the standards in place to make sure that our values and what we want to do are consistent moving forward. So it's having that strategy ahead of time and being smart about how we're going forward. Hannah can speak to it more, but early in this season, one of our CSA partners that we had planned to work with the farms for one reason, like couldn't operate this year.
00:23:54
Speaker
So it was at the last minute, Hannah working and trying to figure out like, where do we go and how do we work with these families? So I don't know if you want to speak more to that, Hannah. Yeah. I mean, I think we're really lucky in that situation in particular to have so many great farmers and partners still at a region that we can rely on when we do face challenges and bumps in the road. There's usually someone else out there who's.
00:24:17
Speaker
face something similar that we can draw on for help. I will mention some of the like bigger challenges with the fair food program have been some of the tech issues behind things. I know Carrie knows a little more about these intricate issues and challenges than I do, but it is challenging to get a Visa debit card and make sure that all these different places can accept it. It's been a little bit of a challenge and.
00:24:40
Speaker
There's been just other things that we've gone through the first iterations of this program that if Carrie wants to talk about more, feel free to add. Yeah, I think it's just generally we have we're like not tech professionals trying to make sure that Visa cards work all the time with all these different places in a variety of different like in online ordering situations and it's it is it has sometimes they've taken longer than others but I think it's just again we have really strong partners that
00:25:09
Speaker
We've been able to work on the backend to try to get all of these pickups aligned. And we've only, we launched the fair food program with the Visa co-branded cards in June. So it's not like we're not really far into it and being flexible and pivoting to try to make the experience for the customer and for us and for our firm partners as easy as possible. So we don't have those frustrated emails in our inbox when we come in the morning. And that's, you know, happened a fair bit early on and.
00:25:40
Speaker
Luckily people understood our participants were really understanding that this is a new program and we're trying to do the best that we can get there. And I think any challenge that we faced was met with a lot of communication from partners and by us. And that has really been like the biggest takeaway, you know, for all of this, like acknowledging when things don't go perfect, but letting folks know that you were working on it and we're sharing our successes when things are moving forward really well.
00:26:08
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. And I know credit card processing companies, like those rules are very complex, but they're also set in stone. So you kind of just have to figure out a way to work around them and navigate that whole process. And I know that's kind of your initial reasoning for reaching out to Barnador. I was wondering if you could kind of explain that and you're asked to us as well as like kind of what that did and allowed some of this online ordering and how that played into that, I guess. Sure. So the initial idea behind our program was like,
00:26:37
Speaker
We had a lot of folks that were interested in receiving just like X number of dollars per month or money on a card that they could spend at their leisure without having to use like discount coupons, whatever it might be. And from there, we, we did a fair bit of research and found one company called PEX and traditionally they use it for like kind of corporate entities to do like spending for employees. Like they use kind of like an employee spending card or a benefit card. And the.
00:27:06
Speaker
The value of using that company was like, as the administrator of the program on the backend, I can see when transactions happen successfully, I can see declines. So I can see like where people are trying to use their card and it doesn't go through for one way or another. If they're trying to spend more money than they have on their card, all of these things are like incredibly valuable just to like figure out the success rate of the program, essentially.
00:27:31
Speaker
From our end, you know, talking with the company PEX, there are a couple of different ways we could distribute funding using those cards. Traditionally, like larger stores that, you know, you think of grocery stores and you go and they have like a swipe card and it's established just for that entity, just that one business. But we're talking with farm vendors, they're using secondary or third party merchant processors, such as Barnador. The difference in that is like established like grocery stores, entities,
00:27:58
Speaker
They have merchant IDs. And with that, we have the ability, for instance, like the pharmacy that we work with, we could allow these establishments based on their merchant ID number, distinct merchant ID number to use, accept payment from our cards with like barn to door, which is what a lot of our firm partners use online. They're not given, uh, distinct merchant ID numbers. Their business is categorized by a merchant category code, which essentially is like, if you go to the grocery store.
00:28:28
Speaker
and you use your Discover card or something. That's how Discover categorized purchases is like these broader categories. And most of the farm vendors we worked with had a variety of different codes that were kind of assigned to them when they signed up for the third like party merchant processor. It might be like a miscellaneous farm vendor or it could be like a specialized
00:28:52
Speaker
retail store or something along those lines where if we allowed our cards to be used at say a restaurant or a grocery store category, then the participants could go to any grocery store or any restaurant. And while that's not a bad thing, it wasn't really the purpose of our program. We've had to kind of figure out a way to limit where the cards could be used, but make it easy enough for vendors to comply to accept payment.
00:29:20
Speaker
which was a little bit of research and a little of creativity. And what we ended up doing was selecting merchant category code, a really specific merchant category code that we recommend and ask our participating pharma vendors to adjust their merchant category code to in order to be accepting of our payment. Long, complicated process essentially for folks to get there. And that's been, that has been one of the challenging pieces of
00:29:46
Speaker
This program is like having this techie conversation with farmers who just like, they just want to accept payment and be part of it. So, you know, it's how to have the conversation like quickly and confidently and, you know, make sure everybody's doing due diligence to do the right thing. But luckily the process of adjusting merchant category codes has been successful for folks that want to do it. And it, we see the benefits on our end because like, again, I can
00:30:16
Speaker
look at the backend of transactions and see that participants are being able to shop at any vendor that's on our allowable list, which is great. Yeah. So essentially you're kind of limiting, I guess, what the funds on that card can be spent on to businesses that have the right code, essentially, correct? Exactly. Yeah.
00:30:38
Speaker
Yeah. And these codes are, we use a code called like agricultural cooperatives, which really represents most of the entities that we've been working with are firm vendors and they provide services. So it makes sense as like a merchant category code for the vendors that we're working with, but it's unique enough where we're not going to have a participant trying to go to like target and use their card. All of this is a trust process. We trust that our vendors, you know, are, they can have trust in us that they're going to, you know, be paid for the products that they're
00:31:08
Speaker
selling and then the participants are, we have trust in us that they're, you know, using the funds for what it's used for. And part of us using this like approach of limiting vendors takes away some of that like, um, checks and balances that we as a small organization really couldn't provide. Like it was, we didn't want to have those conversations on a regular basis saying, Hey, you really shouldn't be going to X, Y, and Z to purchase. We want to keep it to farm vendors.
00:31:38
Speaker
only in these approved farm vendors that carry the same value system that we're trying to put forth with our program. Yeah. And Hannah, I was curious just in hearing about all of this process, how are you guys funding a lot of this? Is a lot of it community-based funding? Are you guys doing it with grants? How have you gone about that side of it?
00:31:58
Speaker
Yeah. So for the fair food program, the funding for that mainly came from a seed grant from New York health foundation back in 2021. But it's also been really heavily community funded same with our fair share program.
00:32:13
Speaker
It's just been a collective pool of both our members and then outside donors to the program and small foundations. Yeah. We're currently running a fundraiser to continue the program that folks can check out on our website, which is just adkaction.org. And if you go into our food security page, you can find ways to donate to the program there. That's one of the best ways to help support our projects.
00:32:36
Speaker
Yeah. What was that grant process like? I know sometimes that can be a bit of a big process for any organization. Yeah, it was a lot. It's a bigger foundation that's orient a lot of its funding to a lot of different organizations and it wasn't a non substantial amount of money. So obviously we want to make sure we're making good on our promises. And so part of that is like building in the metrics to track
00:33:04
Speaker
outcomes and outputs for success. So putting this great idea on a paper is one thing, and then making sure that we generate a project that will meet those expectations or hopefully meet our expectations and meet all those metrics is part of the process and the design of it. Definitely. Well, I'm curious, what have been some of the best outcomes or areas of progress that this specific program has seen? I feel like it's just like those great
00:33:33
Speaker
random emails that are phone calls that we get from people that are like, this is making a huge difference in our life. So it makes all these like phone calls and tech complexities and stuff and making everything kind of flow smoothly. It just makes all of that worth
Future Sustainability and Expansion Plans
00:33:49
Speaker
it. And I think that those are the biggest successes and then figuring out ways to keep
00:33:53
Speaker
this program moving forward. Like we're obviously in a four season world here in the Adirondack parks. So farmers markets are a thing now, but the end of this month, not so much. So it's like really, you know, the next steps, like how do we expand the project so that folks can utilize a funding beyond the summertime and really make this a sustainable, tangible benefit to these families throughout the season and throughout the year. Yeah. Really fun.
00:34:21
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I would definitely agree with that. And also I just would want to add that the benefit to our farm partners as well is also really rewarding. Like to talk with some of our farmers that are substantial and very large farming operations. And then to hear that our programs are making a difference in their bottom line or what's going on at their farm.
00:34:43
Speaker
is, is really rewarding as well, just to know that we're trying to tackle this issue from all areas and help bolster our food system as a whole. I'm curious, I'm sure you guys do get a lot of emails and phone calls and things like that, just showing some appreciation for the program. Are there any kind of specific success stories that come to mind of people that have really enjoyed or benefited from this program?
00:35:09
Speaker
I've had quite a few participants who have told me how much of an impact this program has made in their personal health, just having like whole nutritious foods to eat. That one's really impactful for me. Sure. Carrie has some similar things. I think I mentioned it earlier, but I think a big one for me was this, it was a couple that a husband had been diagnosed cancer or something. And part of his like recovery and health process, like he was going through chemo and, and, you know, like a terrible, terrible diagnosis and ordeal on like
00:35:39
Speaker
part of that, their like approach to general health and wellness was to incorporate only whole healthy local foods into their diet. And to receive the emails that our programs are helping them achieve that and make it like critical to them achieving that is massive. You know, it's like, those are the things that you don't expect to kind of hear about and see going into this type of work. Or you think that you hope you're accomplishing that. But again, when you put that
00:36:08
Speaker
face their name to the actual outcome. It makes you want to get up and work a little harder every day to make sure that these programs can keep going and that we can expand it to even more people. Yeah, definitely. That's really awesome to hear. I was curious, you guys are primarily based in New York state. Have you guys heard of any other organizations across the country doing similar programs to this? You're the first I've heard of, and I think it's so cool. I'm wondering if there's others.
00:36:34
Speaker
Um, I, I haven't heard of a lot. We did have a conversation like mid-summer with another group based out like in the, um, central New York area, am I right? Was it or Western New York? Might've been Rochester, but I was kind of doing something similar-ish. I mean, I think there's a lot of groups out there that are trying to distribute foods to different neighborhoods, but I think the piece that we're unique on is the local farm aspect and bringing
00:37:00
Speaker
that kind of holistic view into our priority of keeping people fed locally. So yeah, I haven't heard too much beyond that, to be honest. Yeah, me either. Just doing a quick Google search on trying to find some other programs in other states that are similar. I couldn't find something that completely replicated what we were doing. Like Carrie said, there's a lot of programs
00:37:21
Speaker
that are trying to provide funding for folks to get food or providing like food packages, but not a whole lot that's connecting that local food link and also giving people the power to choose what works well for their family.
00:37:34
Speaker
Yeah. Well, it is, it is just such a cool program. And I think it's encouraging to hear too, that it is a hundred percent community based. It was founded by the community. It serves the community and it's fueled by the community. And so that's really unique and really cool too. And I would hope that makes it almost an easier type of program to access for other folks across the country to be able to start up and maybe following your guys's footsteps as well. What would you say is kind of next or ahead for 80 K action and specifically this fair food program?
00:38:03
Speaker
Yeah, I think I touched on it a little bit, but it's just like making sure that, I mean, a big piece is that we don't want to start this type of program and say, oh, funding's gone. It's done. Cause I feel like the community we're serving sees that often with other types of food distribution or food access programs. So the like sustainability is, is probably the overarching theme for all parts. Like we want to.
00:38:28
Speaker
make sure that the funding is sustainable, that we want to make sure that our outreach to and the level of care that we're showing participants is sustainable. We want the farm vendors we're working with that are, that they're seeing this as a sustainable benefit to their bottom line, but also in the work they're doing. Cause I feel like it's great that all of the farm partners we work with, they care as much about this program as we do. Like they want to see it success. And yeah, it's that longevity planning that
00:38:59
Speaker
really is kind of the next piece in keeping the train moving forward. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you both so much for talking about this program, sharing with us about the challenges and the successes and just being able to share this program with our listeners. Yeah, absolutely. And if there's anybody listening, part of the work we're doing is to create this community toolkit. So like biggest compliment we can have is that other groups might want to tackle a similar program like this. So.
00:39:26
Speaker
We'll be sharing some like community toolkit programming so that way you can kind of take it and run with it because that's the goal of it is to kind of get this not just a Northern New York based project. Thank you so much for having us.
00:39:41
Speaker
I want to extend my thanks to Hannah and Carrie for joining us on this week's podcast episode. Here at Barnadore, we're humbled to support thousands of farms across the country, and we're honored to get the opportunity to learn from our most successful farms who share the tactics, resources, and tools that they use to grow and manage your farm businesses. For more information on ADK Action, you can check out their website, adkaction.org, or you can follow them on social media, at Adirondack Action. Thank you for tuning in, and we'll see you next time.
00:40:14
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in. For more free farm resources, tips, and tactics that are most successful farms use to grow and manage their business, visit barnadore.com slash resources. Also don't forget to subscribe to the direct farm podcast to automatically download our weekly episodes. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.