Save Green Gate Farm
Donation protected
Dear Friends:
Since 2006, we have dedicated our lives and used our life savings to create and maintain an award-winning, community-based farm that serves people of all incomes.
In August 2014, our farm was hit with a triple blow.
On a clear August morning, a reckless driver hit Farmer Skip head-on as he was driving the farm van 55mph on highway 183. We are lucky he is alive but he was badly injured. The accident totaled the farm delivery van and Farmer Skip is being treated for whiplash and persistent back pain. http://greengatefarms.net/crash/
Vegetable farming provides the majority of our income so Skip attempted to plant fall crops right after the accident. However, this proved too difficult. Since we missed fall planting, we will not have income from crops until the spring planting season. Assuming Farmer Skip is mended by then.
We were simultaneously hit with the landlord raising the rent on our city farm. And, Bastrop county denied our agricultural valuation for our River Farm, where we grow about 15 acres of certified organic vegetables. This means our farm is being taxed $9,000 (market rate), not $1,200 (agricultural rate).
When it rains, it pours.
Many of you have been extremely supportive, asking how you can help, but frankly, we have been too overwhelmed to give much direction. Handling the aftermath of this accident -- hiring a lawyer, ongoing doctor appointments, pain and depression -- has been bewildering and exhausting.
We're fighters and although all our energies are focused on paying medical and farm bills, we are dedicated to keeping Green Gate alive so we are attempting to generate income through other endeavors:
1) Farmer Erin is seeking a part-time marketing and writing job (leads appreciated).
2) The farm will continue to offer: on-farm education, farm rental, farmer consulting, camps (kid & adult) and meat CSA memberships.
Our family has used our life savings to create and maintain an award-winning, community-based farm that serves people of all incomes. We’re confident that our innovative programs will continue when we get over this hurdle, but right now there is no cushion (the tax office wants it!).
We can’t do this alone. Your help is needed.
How You Can Help the Farm:
1) Give anything you can to the GoFundMe campaign. The campaign will help us pay basic bills, cover costs of fighting the tax office for our agricultural status and help us prepare for spring planting. With your help, the farm can survive through the winter and will have a new life in the spring season when Farmer Skip can take the helm again.
2) Join the Spring CSA. Sign up and pay for a 20-week 2015 Spring/Summer Vegetable Shares today. Invest in the farm’s future. http://greengatefarms.net/csa/
3) Write a letter for the Bastrop County tax office: Please send us a letter stating how our farm has served you/community. If you have purchased, taken a workshop, attended camp, volunteered, traded food for work, used your WIC/SNAP vouchers at our farm stand, please share your experience. (Green Gate Farms, 8310 Canoga Avenue, Austin, TX, 78724)
4) Rent the farm. Need place for a birthday party, office gathering, end-of-the-year celebration, wedding?
5) Attend our Farm Camps and let your friends know about them. Sponsor a Farm Camp Kid: We have a long waiting list of children who’d like to attend camp for a day or week. http://newfarminstitute.org/shop/
6) Book a consulting session. Do you own land and want to make it productive? Thinking about starting a farm?
We’ve been blessed by helping hands, enthusiasm and encouragement. Our goal is to get through this rough patch with grace, and to emerge stronger so we all enjoy a magnificent Spring 2015 season.
With your help and confidence in our vision, we can all look forward to more delicious abundance, while building a healthy local food community in Central Texas together.
Thank you for your patience and support!
Farmers Skip and Erin (and the farm kids)
http://greengatefarms.net/
http://newfarminstitute.org/
Since 2006, we have dedicated our lives and used our life savings to create and maintain an award-winning, community-based farm that serves people of all incomes.
In August 2014, our farm was hit with a triple blow.
On a clear August morning, a reckless driver hit Farmer Skip head-on as he was driving the farm van 55mph on highway 183. We are lucky he is alive but he was badly injured. The accident totaled the farm delivery van and Farmer Skip is being treated for whiplash and persistent back pain. http://greengatefarms.net/crash/
Vegetable farming provides the majority of our income so Skip attempted to plant fall crops right after the accident. However, this proved too difficult. Since we missed fall planting, we will not have income from crops until the spring planting season. Assuming Farmer Skip is mended by then.
We were simultaneously hit with the landlord raising the rent on our city farm. And, Bastrop county denied our agricultural valuation for our River Farm, where we grow about 15 acres of certified organic vegetables. This means our farm is being taxed $9,000 (market rate), not $1,200 (agricultural rate).
When it rains, it pours.
Many of you have been extremely supportive, asking how you can help, but frankly, we have been too overwhelmed to give much direction. Handling the aftermath of this accident -- hiring a lawyer, ongoing doctor appointments, pain and depression -- has been bewildering and exhausting.
We're fighters and although all our energies are focused on paying medical and farm bills, we are dedicated to keeping Green Gate alive so we are attempting to generate income through other endeavors:
1) Farmer Erin is seeking a part-time marketing and writing job (leads appreciated).
2) The farm will continue to offer: on-farm education, farm rental, farmer consulting, camps (kid & adult) and meat CSA memberships.
Our family has used our life savings to create and maintain an award-winning, community-based farm that serves people of all incomes. We’re confident that our innovative programs will continue when we get over this hurdle, but right now there is no cushion (the tax office wants it!).
We can’t do this alone. Your help is needed.
How You Can Help the Farm:
1) Give anything you can to the GoFundMe campaign. The campaign will help us pay basic bills, cover costs of fighting the tax office for our agricultural status and help us prepare for spring planting. With your help, the farm can survive through the winter and will have a new life in the spring season when Farmer Skip can take the helm again.
2) Join the Spring CSA. Sign up and pay for a 20-week 2015 Spring/Summer Vegetable Shares today. Invest in the farm’s future. http://greengatefarms.net/csa/
3) Write a letter for the Bastrop County tax office: Please send us a letter stating how our farm has served you/community. If you have purchased, taken a workshop, attended camp, volunteered, traded food for work, used your WIC/SNAP vouchers at our farm stand, please share your experience. (Green Gate Farms, 8310 Canoga Avenue, Austin, TX, 78724)
4) Rent the farm. Need place for a birthday party, office gathering, end-of-the-year celebration, wedding?
5) Attend our Farm Camps and let your friends know about them. Sponsor a Farm Camp Kid: We have a long waiting list of children who’d like to attend camp for a day or week. http://newfarminstitute.org/shop/
6) Book a consulting session. Do you own land and want to make it productive? Thinking about starting a farm?
We’ve been blessed by helping hands, enthusiasm and encouragement. Our goal is to get through this rough patch with grace, and to emerge stronger so we all enjoy a magnificent Spring 2015 season.
With your help and confidence in our vision, we can all look forward to more delicious abundance, while building a healthy local food community in Central Texas together.
Thank you for your patience and support!
Farmers Skip and Erin (and the farm kids)
http://greengatefarms.net/
http://newfarminstitute.org/
Organizer
Erin Flynn
Organizer
Austin, TX
