Help Traveling Cap Mushroom Co. Continue to Grow!

Hi folks!

As many of you know, I’m Gabe DeCicco, the owner and operator of Traveling Cap Mushroom Company, a small gourmet mushroom farm located in West Boylston, MA where our aim is to provide high-quality, healthy mushroom options to our local communities. Although I’ve been cultivating mushrooms for over 13 years, this was the first year as a new business in MA. We’ve grown an excellent community of customers in the area and are excited to continue growing beautiful, delicious mushrooms as well as growing our farm—but in order to do that, we need help from our family and friends!

To keep up with the harsh MA winters and continued demand, we need to upgrade our infrastructure. Currently, our farm operates out of a 500 sq ft portion of an agricultural warehouse where the only thing separating our operation from the rest of the warehouse is a thick sheet of plastic. To beat the heat in upcoming summers and the chill in the approaching winter we need to build insulated walls and replace our existing canvas grow tents with Coroplast walled grow rooms. These alterations will also mean we’ll need to upgrade our air filtration and HVAC systems. These upgrades will not only keep our mushrooms at a happy homeostasis, but will also lower the labor hours required to maintain the farm.

Check out the video below to see our current setup:

We estimate we will need $10,000 to build insulated walls, build two coroplast walled grow rooms, and make updates to the air filtration and HVAC systems.

If we are able to exceed our fundraising goal, 10% of all donations beyond the initial goal will be donated to the Regional Environmental Council (REC) in Worcester, MA. The REC is a nonprofit urban farm and food equality organization that not only helped me land on my feet after developing a work injury at a large vegetable farm, but they also teach Worcester youth how to farm, organize several Worcester farmers markets, run mobile farmers market that bring fresh food options to food deserts, and hosts agriculture related workshops and events that empower the community. I would not be where I'm at today without the REC's consistent support buying our mushrooms and disturbing them through Worcester.

Additional funds beyond our goal will be used to assist us in completing our wholesale license, developing mushroom cultivation courses for the community, making additional changes to lower our overhead costs, and creating affordable mushroom kits.

Phew! You made it to the bottom... that's a lot of words you just read! But seriously, if you're still reading, I am thankful for your time and if you do end up supporting our farm I am eternally grateful for your generosity. At the end of the day, I just want everyone to have access to mushrooms! Let's make it happen!

Gabriel DeCicco