As farmers, we produce healthy, delicious food and we know the real value of our labor. We spend our scarce free time advocating for policy that supports sustainable food systems. A sustainable food system is one that both works to recognize the value of our hard work and to provision full access to nutrient rich food. Small-scale, regenerative farming honors access to healthy food as a human right. While we work toward system change, we do what we can within our own communities, here and now.
Please join us both in short and long term struggle. Below are a few ways to challenge food apartheid.
DONATE
Please consider making a donation to our food sovereignty projects. Every little bit helps!
As the 2023 CSA season shifts into our first Winter CSA, we are looking to fund our ongoing work with upstate pantries, NYC-based mutual aid organizations, and land access endeavors.
Our Food Justice Partners
NYC
St. John’s Bread and Life: Every day, Bread & Life serves thousands of meals to hungry New Yorkers through our Lexington Avenue facility and our unique Mobile Soup Kitchen. They also provide the following crucial services:
- Medical care (provided by Care for the Homeless)
- Legal counseling (provided by Urban Justice)
- Nutrition education
- Human services – including housing assistance and employment referrals
Bushwick Ayuda Mutua: A grassroots network of volunteers providing groceries and household staples to residents in Bushwick, Brooklyn with an emphasis on serving undocumented people, low-income families with children and those sick or positive to COVID-19.
Bushwick Emergency Relief Fund: The Bushwick Emergency Relief Fund (BERF) was started by teachers and staff at a local Bushwick school to help families facing food insecurity and economic instability during the pandemic. What started as a fund to help the school’s families is now beginning to serve Bushwick as a whole through community programming including food pantries, clothing drives, and other community resources.
Comida Pal Pueblo: Comida Pal Pueblo is an initiative collectively led by three Bushwick-based grassroots organizations, New York Boricua Resistance (NYBR), G-Rebls, and Mi Casa Resiste. Together, they work to distribute free fresh produce and other essential items based on community needs in Bushwick, NY.
Guanabana Collective: Guanábana serves as a collective dedicated to centering the voices of Black folks with Antillean roots including the Greater and Lesser Antilles.
Heart of Dinner: A nonprofit organization that fundraises to provide cooked-meals and groceries to 1,000 elderly-community of Chinatown, Manhattan.
La Morada: La Morada’s mutual aid kitchen's mission is to feed our community with delicious, culturally-appropriate meals while nourishing our community with encouragement, empowerment, knowledge, and resilience-based on a mutual aid practice.
Nuestra Mesa BK: Nuestra Mesa BK is a Brooklyn-based kitchen collective. We fundraise for community organizations with affordable, delicious meals of our creation. Our team is entirely volunteer-run and comprises neighbors in and outside the service industry, all with a love of food and community.
The Peoples Peoples Fridge: Everybody eats, everybody thrives. A mutual aid free fridge at 958 Saint Nicholas Ave. in Washington Heights.
Plants for the People: Mutual aid through gifting plants + tools to make sustainable knowledge & gardening accessible to all.
Woodbine: Woodbine is an experimental hub in Ridgewood, Queens for developing the practices, skills, and tools needed to build autonomy.
Wat Buddha Thai Thavorn Vanaram: Wat Buddha Thai Thavorn Vanaram is a Buddhist temple in Elmhurst, Queens. We work with them to do occasional distribution for 100 residents. Because the businesses and livelihoods of Thai, Chinese, Laotian, Burmese communities of Elmhurst are mostly structured by a cash-based economy, they have not been able to support themselves with government funding during the pandemic. We provide organic Asian greens to the temple for them to distribute to the Buddhist community.
CATSKILLS
Pantries
• Burlington Flats Food Pantry
• Community Cupboard
• Cooperstown Food Pantry
• Delaware Opportunity
• Greater Franklin Food Pantry
• Loaves & Fishes Food Pantry
• Richfield Springs Food Pantry
• Unadilla Community Food Pantry
• Worcester Food Pantry
• Helping Hands Food Pantry
• FDT Maryland
• Milford Food Pantry
Participating pantries order from the CSA wholesale fresh sheet and we distribute weekly until the funds run out.
Delaware Opportunities: A nonprofit serving Delaware County, New York residents with emergency food and economic relief, school supplies, and home deliveries. The CSA works with Delaware Opportunity to provide 77 food boxes a month comprised of organic: veggies, milk, ground beef, eggs, and bread. Together we distribute to families in Delaware County. We are actively fundraising to increase the number served.
Future Foods: We received a $12,000 grant to collaborate with Dr. Carli Ficano’s Hartwick college class to run a ten-week subsidized CSA pilot and cooking program for ten families in Otsego county. Students will volunteer at Star Route Farm, help establish a SNAP program for the farm, while managing and researching consumer outreach. We hope this pilot turns into a long term collaboration as a way to support the health and vitality of our local community.
STAR ROUTE FARM MERCH
Proceeds from the sale of these merch items will go toward Star Route Farm’s mutual aid goals!
The Greater Catskills Young Farmers Coalition’s member farms are primarily small-scale family farms situated in Delaware, Scoharie, and Otsego counties, and meet monthly in Delhi, New York, during the off-season or at farm tours/potlucks from May to October.
Our chapter aims to foster the exchange of ideas and support among member farms, and to lobby for local, state, and national policies that benefit small farms. Though our Google group is only open to member farms and agricultural stakeholders, our Facebook group is open to the public—feel free to get in touch with us there and check for any updates and events.
Connect with us:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/933722460001926/