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Wellspring CSA Pick Up Procedure, a rundown.
What are my responsibilities as a CSA shareholder?
The single most important thing (aside from enjoying the food!) that you can do during the season is to read the newsletter, which is sent via email each week on Thursday morning. The newsletter contains important info about what's in the box, news from the farm, photos of the veggies for identification, recipe ideas and other things you need to know about your food.
***In the past, we've had problems with the emails we send via Constant Contact getting filtered out of people's inboxes as spam. To prevent this from happening, please add wellspringed@aol.com to your email contact list/address book.
The other general shareholder responsibilities are:
1) You made a financial investment to the farm for this winter season's share of produce. Along with this agreement comes the understanding that although we work very hard to ensure that each week's share is bountiful and beautiful, some things, like weather events, are out of the farm's control and can occasionally affect quantity and quality of the shares.
2) You agree to pick up your share each week at the location and times specified and agree to mark your name off indicating you have received your share unless other arrangements have been made at least one week prior to the scheduled delivery date.
3) You agree to transfer your produce to bags at the pick up site and leave the box behind after disassembling as instructed to prevent rips/tears (see below for video).
What do I do when I pick up my share?
Deliveries will take place on Thursday afternoons. When you pick up your share you will take a share from the stack, transfer the contents into the grocery bags or cloth bags you have brought, carefully unfold the box, and check your name off the list. Simple enough, but please read through the step by step process to avoid confusion at pick up time.
1. Arrive at your pickup site between the scheduled pickup hours, times are as follows:
Wellspring in Newburg, noon - 8 pm
Karen's Energy in West Bend, noon - 7 pm
Java Dock in Port Washington, 11am - 7:30pm
Olsen's Piggly Wiggly in Cedarburg, noon - 9 pm
Weeds in Cedarburg, noon - 6pm
Outpost in Mequon, 1 pm - 8:30 pm
Outpost (East Capitol) in Milwaukee, 1:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Milk N Honey in Wauwatosa, 3:30 pm - 7 pm
Total Health in Menomonee Falls, 3:30 pm - 7 pm
La Merenda in Milwaukee 2 pm - 8:30 pm
Please be patient if we are not there right on time. We always do our best to be punctual, and rarely are we more than ten minutes late.
2. Go inside the business to the area where the boxes are located. At Piggly Wiggly in Cedarburg, the boxes are beyond the cooler area of the produce section, so ask a produce dept employee to help you. At the Outpost on Capitol Dr, boxes will be on a cart in the produce section (ask an employee if unsure). At the Outpost in Mequon, the boxes will be immediately inside the main doors in the atrium. At our other sites that are businesses, the owners like to meet the folks picking up the boxes, so find an employee, introduce yourself, and explain that you are a Wellspring CSA shareholder here to pick up your produce box! They will show you where the boxes are located.
Near the boxes you will find the check-off list of shareholder names picking up at each site that week. Find your name and check yourself off the list. Read through the notes on the top of the list for any important announcements.
DO NOT take a box if your name is not on the list. Make sure you are at the correct pickup location that you signed up for. Call Heather immediately at 262-994-1687 if you think there's been a mistake and we will figure out what went wrong and get you your box. The list will also indicate if you have an egg share. Do not take eggs if there is nothing listed in the "Egg Share" column by your name. Again, please call Heather if you think we made a mistake before taking anything. Please take care in checking off your name, so we know you picked up that week.
3. Take a box off of the stack. Please DO NOT go through all the boxes to find the "best" one, each box will contain the same amount and variety of produce.
4. Empty the contents of the box into the empty bag(s) that you have brought from home.
5. Please CAREFULLY unfold the cardboard box at the site and leave it in a designated area (ask employee if unsure). Do not remove the wax cardboard CSA share boxes from your drop-site. We need them for the following week's deliveries!
We believe this system is more advantageous because it saves you having to remember to return that bulky cardboard box every week and it saves us the hassle of tracking down those boxes that inevitably don't get returned (and cost us money if more must be ordered...thus adding additional costs in the future.)
Please also keep in mind that these boxes are expensive, and can be fragile if handled the wrong way (they don't unfold like normal boxes and forcing them to unfold in that manner is what causes them to rip). When they rip we cannot reuse them. A short video from Steve at Tipi Produce with instructions on how to properly unfold your box can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykUjnZZHY6o
PLEASE please please watch it. It is about one minute long, and it is much easier to do properly after you watch someone else do it.
6. Please be friendly and courteous to the pickup site's staff who are helping you with your CSA pick up. If something goes wrong or you don't have your share/eggs, it's not their fault. Contact Heather at 262-994-1687 or you can email concerns to wellspringcsa@gmail.com.
What if I am splitting a share? Can I just go to the pickup site and remove my "half" of the share from the box?
No. To avoid confusion at the pick up sites it is important that people who are splitting shares take the entire share with them to divide the share. There cannot be share boxes left at the pick up site with only partial shares left in them because they will get taken by mistake by people who have paid for a full share.
Why are there occasionally items for sale at the Farmers Markets that are not included in my share?
Although the VAST majority, easily 99 percent, of all produce grown at Wellspring is grown primarily for the CSA (with a little extra planned for our two Farmers Markets), we do grow a very small amount of crops that are only available at the markets. This is not because we don't want to put them in the share, but because they are perhaps not seasonally available during our CSA season (like asparagus) or they are laborious to grow and difficult to harvest in large quantities (like husk cherries), or we just don't have enough of it at that time to give out 110 worthwhile portions (like when the first few pounds of tomatoes roll in). If you frequent our market booth and have questions about this or anything else please ask us for more information. We are always happy to discuss the food we grow!
What if I am going to be out of town during a delivery day?
The simplest solution to missing a share week is to have a friend, neighbor, family member etc pick up your box for you. There is no need to contact us if someone else is picking up your share, but be sure to let them know the procedure for picking up the boxes! (see above) Alternately, you may opt for us not to pack your box during that time, or to donate it to a charitable organization. If no one will be picking up your share during a given week please let us know by Monday of that week. Harvesting for the shares is a lot of work, so if a box is going to go unclaimed we'd rather not see all the work and energy that goes into growing it go to waste.
What do I do if I am going to be late?
Because all of our drop sites are businesses, you must arrive at the pick up location before they close for the evening. Again, the best option is to have a friend pick up your share for you if you are not going to be able to make it on time. Please be respectful and courteous by picking up your share on time. If you don't pick up your share during the designated time it will be donated. Do not expect your share to be at your site the following day, unless you have cleared it with an employee at your drop site. However, this is NOT an option you should frequently utilize. Remember that these are busy retail locations and the best way to get your weekly box is to show up during the proper time frame.
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