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Focus on Agriculture in Rural Maine Schools Executive Director Heather Burt says the new FARMS Community Kitchen and Food Learning Center will help the nonprofit expand its work in area schools to the entire community. (J.W. Oliver photo) |
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By J.W. Oliver
Focus on Agriculture in Rural Maine Schools plans to use its new Damariscotta headquarters to expand its work in area schools to the entire community.
The FARMS Community Kitchen and Food Learning Center are now open at 323 Main St. in Damariscotta, above Rising Tide Community Market.
The nonprofit’s roots, as its name suggests, are in its work with children in area schools. FARMS will continue this work, but the new FARMS will offer opportunities for all ages.
“I think we’re going from being a farm-to-school organization to being a farm-to-community organization,” FARMS Executive Director Heather Burt said in a recent interview at the space. “If we really want to see change take place and have a healthier community, it’s important to reach everybody.”
FARMS plans to add programs to reach out to the families of the children it works with, as well as the large population of senior citizens in the area.
A home base gives FARMS the ability to “shape our programming to meet the needs we see, versus trying to fit into the structure of classrooms and their budgets,” Burt said.
The Community Kitchen will afford space for hands-on classes and workshops, while the Food Learning Center will offer a library of books and materials and serve as a place for people to gather informally and learn about food and nutrition issues.
The facility remains a work in progress. FARMS hopes to complete the Community Kitchen in time for the fall harvest, while the learning center should have regular hours by late February.
A second phase of the project, which will include office space and a walk-in refrigerator, also remains. The budget for the entire project is close to $200,000.
Burt wants the kitchen and learning center to become “a place that really inspires and empowers people and gives them the tools to make healthier choices and connect to products and try new things.”
For now, FARMS can hold the first of the classes, workshops and community events that will help fulfill this goal.
The Food and Farm Film Festival, already underway, will show features about agriculture, food and health issues at 7 p.m. every Friday. “Killer at Large,” a documentary about obesity in America, will play Feb. 7.
Local chefs, farmers and medical practitioners will teach classes about various topics.
For example, Morning Dew Farm, an organic farm in Newcastle, is going to teach a series of classes about gardening, set to begin in late February.
Many of the ideas for future events focus on hands-on education. One class would coincide with the weekly farmers market at Rising Tide.
Participants would pick up produce at the market, and each class would teach participants how to prepare or preserve a specific fruit or vegetable.
After-school culinary clubs would bring elementary and high-school students in to cook with local foods, have fun and leave with a nutritious meal for their family. The clubs will “give young people real skills as they move forward to being independent in the future,” Burt said.
FARMS will bring in experts from the health care community to speak about nutrition, and give people the skills to follow their advice with cooking classes.
The nonprofit also plans a series of classes about prescription programs, wherein physicians prescribe fresh produce for their patients. The patients who receive these prescriptions would cook together and learn about creative options for their diet, how to cook with unfamiliar foods, and easy, quick recipes to comply with their prescriptions.
The space is available for other uses, and FARMS is open to ideas and requests.
Burt describes the space as “from the community, for the community,” and the phrase aptly describes the financing of the project.
The startup money came from a May 2013 crowd-sourcing campaign through the website Kickstarter.
FARMS set a goal of $20,000 for the campaign and, in just a month, raised $21,991 from 270 backers.
FARMS has had other support since, including a $10,000 grant from the Hannaford Charitable Foundation, gifts of materials and other donations large and small.
The support for the Community Kitchen project comes from a wide range of gifts and givers, “not a few people giving a lot, but a lot of people giving what they could,” Burt said.
FARMS, in this spirit, will always make its programs accessible to all, regardless of ability to pay. Classes, events and workshops will always have a sliding scale, except for the occasional fundraiser, Burt said.
“If the suggested donation is $20 and you can only give $2, that’s okay,” Burt said. “That’s going to be really, really important to being able to reach everybody who hopefully will benefit from this.”
The FARMS Community Kitchen and Food Learning Center is at 323 Main St. in Damariscotta, above Rising Tide Community Market. The entrance is at the back of the store. For more information and updates about events, visit http://www.mefarms.org.
