Last year, ACORN made the decision to incorporate as a non-profit  membership organization and to secure 501(C)(3) tax-exempt status. Why?

When we were founded in 2005, we held public meetings and events to educate citizens about peak oil and its implications for our communities. By 2006, our focus shifted inwards to the work of the food and energy committees.

Then in 2009, we came up for air. The ACORN Energy Co-op spun off from the Network as a business. Volunteers were burning out and it was more and more difficult to sustain the work. We realized that we needed to reconnect with the community and to re-engage with citizens if our work was going to truly take root.

The board agreed to establish a coordinator position and to fund it from fees from Network events and services, private grants and directly from the community through membership donations.

We've done a lot with nothing. But to be effective long-term, we need a coordinator. If you value what we do, please support us with a donation. It takes a community!

Planting season is upon us, along with an exciting opportunity to supply our neighbors with fresh, nutritious food. Please consider joining Addison County's initiative to increase access to local produce by growing an extra row of vegetables for the Addison County Food Shelf at HOPE this season!

Last year, farmers and gardeners in Rutland County produced over 10,000 pounds of fresh food for local food shelves, and we are launching a similar effort in Addison County this year. Gardeners can plant one or more rows of vegetables as part of this community effort to reduce hunger in our county.

Any extra produce can be brought to HOPE Monday through Friday or to our collection site at the Middlebury Farmer's Market on Saturdays. Please email gleanaddison@gmail.com with any questions, or if you would like to volunteer as part of the Addison County gleaning effort. Happy digging!

Stone Soup Recap

Over 100 teachers, farmers, foodservice people and community members participated in the first Stone Soup summit of Addison County schools on April 6 at Mt. Abraham Union High School.

The event was sponsored by ACORN with the assistance of VT FEED (Food Education Every Day, a collaboration of NOFA-VT, Food Works and Shelburne Farms) and explored the connections between school curricula, foodservice and local farms.

For more information about the summit, please visit the ACORN website at www.acornvt.org and review the conference proceedings. Click on "Discussion Forums" and scroll down to "Stone Soup." You must log in and set a password. This protects the site from hackers.

A key outcome of Stone Soup was that each district independently concluded that they needed a Farm-to-School coordinator to move this critical work forward.

We agree. The ACORN board has moved quickly and voted to share the $9,000 cost of an AmeriCorps volunteer with the Willowell Foundation to support a part-time farm-to-school county coordinator for 2010-2011.

If the work of integrating local foods and farming into our schools is important to you, then please consider supporting ACORN with a donation. Thank you! We cannot do it alone!

To view more images from the event, check out Kevin Lehman's photos here.

A working group discusses how to have more local food in schools.

 

Addison County Composting Project

Nearly 25% of our solid waste comes from yard trimmings and food waste, according to the U.S. EPA.  Why not process this solid waste into soil-enhancing compost instead of sending it to the dump?  Well numerous cities and towns across the county are creating programs to do just this and ACORN wants to help kick start such a program here in Addison County.  Some of the model programs involve home pick up and others involve central dropping sites.  ACORN will coordinate with community partners beginning this summer to see if this project is feasible.  Please email david.dolginow@gmail.com if you would like to be involved.