Clodagh McQuillen and Stella Strout plant flowers at Twin Villages Foodbank Farm. (Photo courtesy Sara Cawthon)
Last week, Great Salt Bay Community School seventh grade students and teachers visited the fields at Twin Villages Foodbank Farm to learn about farming for the community and the importance of access to fresh foods.
Students worked together efficiently in the fields to get in all 500 pepper plants as well as 700 flowers. The peppers will yield over 4,500 pounds of food and the flowers will be given to neighbors and brought to local businesses around town.
Twin Villages Foodbank Farm co-founder Megan Taft discussed why growing fresh food is valuable to local families and neighbors living on a tight budget. Students learned why their help to grow vegetables on the farm makes a big difference to local pantries and to many of their neighbors’ meals. The students were able to make a recipe for fresh salad and bread that they later sampled with FARMS at the Y.
FARMS at the Y staff member Karen Kleinkopf was also on the farm to discuss healthy foods in your diet and offered students in-season tasting samples.
“Cooking with students at TVFF brings the farm-to-table experience to life,” she said. “It was inspiring to work with seventh graders as we prepared fresh, recipes together. Experiences like this help children understand where food comes from, the importance of nutritious food, and why everyone deserves access to fresh, local produce.”
FARMS at the Y is a food education program of the CLC YMCA with a mission to excite and educate people of all ages about the value and joy of growing, preparing, and eating nutritious local foods.
Twin Villages Foodbank Farm is on track to grow and distribute 75,000 pounds of fresh, organically grown food this season, involving over 300 students, campers, neighbors, and volunteers in fieldwork that keeps the farm running sustainably.
The farm’s mission is to grow and distribute healthy food for those who need it most in Lincoln County. Since 2015, the farm has provided fresh food for free, thanks to community support, growing over 575,000 pounds of food in 10 seasons on three acres of farmland.
Twin Villages Foodbank Farm also operates the shared community food storage hub, where up to 30,000 pounds of additional food is collected each year from many sources, like grocery stores, gardeners, and farmers, and donated to dozens of community partners.
Twin Villages Foodbank Farm serves pantries in Newcastle, Jefferson, Boothbay, Wiscasset, Waldoboro, Whitefield, and New Harbor. It also provides fresh produce to Healthy Lincoln County’s share tables as well as youth programs like FARMS at the Y.
For more information about Twin Villages Foodbank Farm or to make a secure online donation, go to twinvillagesfarm.org.
Twin Villages Foodbank Farm operates in close partnership with Coastal Rivers Conservation Trust. Coastal Rivers donates the use of its prime farmland at Salt Bay Farm as well as barn space for the hub and provides administrative support.
Coastal Rivers is a nonprofit, member-supported, nationally accredited land trust caring for the lands and waters of the Damariscotta-Pemaquid region by conserving special places, protecting water quality, creating trails and public access, and deepening connections to nature through education programs.
For more information, go to coastalrivers.org.
