Food Security ConVal Region, NH 2024

This fundraising is specific to the Food Security Initiative: growing fresh produce for community food pantries and suppers in 2024. This food donation is the produce of our high school student farmer program. This project addresses food insecurity within the community while also providing students with an accredited and paid internship in which they build practical skills through experiential learning opportunities in their community. The main focus of the project is cultivating organically grown crops from seed to harvest, with an expected yield of at least two thousand pounds of fresh produce allocated for donation to local food pantries and suppers. This represents approximately 15% of our total food production on the farm, which will be given to high-need, impoverished community members. The total cost of this project, which specifically relates to the provision of approximately two thousand pounds of fresh produce donations to two food pantries and at least one community supper program, is $16,500. The associated costs of this proposed community food project include farm supplies and equipment, labor and associated expenses. The project budget is 13% of the farm program budget. With this funding, Cornucopia Project will be able to carry out our food donation program in 2024.We know that the issues of environmental health, personal wellbeing and community resilience are interconnected. We are able to provide our services at no cost to students and families because of the generous support of funders, partners, and community members including volunteers.

Cornucopia Project’s Educational Farm, adjacent to a regional high school with six-hundred and ninety-six students, includes three high tunnels, two acres of outdoor production space, and pollinator habitat. The farm is considered in its entirety to serve as an outdoor classroom to all interested organizations and community members. Year-round, high school students earn academic credit for hands-on learning at the Educational Farm while growing fresh food for their community. The accredited course is provided via NH Extended Learning Opportunity (ELO) program in partnership with ConVal Regional High School. This credit is also available to any student through the New Hampshire VLACS Work as Learning program. Cornucopia Project partners with school administrators, counselors, and teachers to help students achieve their academic and career goals while providing meaningful community service. The student farmers lead in all stages of growing, processing, and delivering farm produce to their school and community through cafeteria meals and snacks, youth classes, educational kits, and weekly food pantry distributions. During their work-study experience with Cornucopia Project, student farmers gain knowledge and pre-professional experience as they interact with customers, community members, volunteers, and farm partners.

Over the course of a year, Cornucopia Project’s Student Farmers produce about 15,000 pounds of produce for a community-supported agriculture program (CSA), ten school gardens, cooking clubs at eight public schools, youth farm educational programs, and charitable distribution of thousands of pounds of fresh vegetables to school snack programs, two food pantries and a community supper.

Additionally, Cornucopia Project provides free traveling installations of three indoor food gardens to schools and community centers year round. Participants receive presentations, vegetable tastings and healthy snack demos throughout their one or two semester experience. Cornucopia Project also creates at-home cooking kits twice a year to create meaningful experiences with local food for families in their own kitchens, distributing through schools and food pantries. Additionally, we visit over two dozen schools each year to provide culinary lessons and vegetable tastings that help children understand connections with healthy food, their environment and their community.

Cornucopia Project, a 501(c)3 organization, achieves its mission of planting seeds for a lifetime of healthy eating through hands-on garden, kitchen, and farm programs. Cornucopia Project serves over 2400 children annually, primarily in the fringe and distant rural communities of the Monadnock Region of New Hampshire (NH). Schools in this service area are historically underserved due to deficiencies in educational funding, community health services, transportation infrastructure, and household income.