We’re writing to give you a quick update on our exciting progress! First we’d like to ask you to become a member today if you’re not already. We hope we’ve earned your support to build a strong Texas local food system.
Now on to the updates:
The Elgin Local Food Center (ELF) is gaining momentum. We’re moving along with fundraising for the Elgin Local Food Center and Sue is meeting with a grant writer on February 26. We’re in touch with the major local funders and hope to learn more about their level of interest in a few weeks. We have a local commitment of $800,000 and we need to raise $1.55M more! As you know the ELF will be a shared use commercial kitchen and local food education center that will increase access to local healthy food in central Texas.
The ELF is a top recommendation in the new Food Hub Feasibility Study for Central Texas The study identified the ELF as a key piece of infrastructure needed for processing local vegetables for sale to schools and other institutions. The ELF could be used as a micro-aggregation node, giving farmers a place to store their product for pickup by a truck heading into Austin to deliver.
Here’s an 11 minute video Sue made for Iowa State University on our design process for the Elgin Local Food Center. This informal training video will be used by Iowa State in their Community Food Systems training program. Many of you star in the video! https://vimeo.com/318304684
Sue was honored to present our food system work at the Smithville EcoFair. Lots of folks came out even though the weather was pretty cold and all were eager to learn about our work to improve healthy local food access in Elgin and Bastrop County. Sue’s presentation will be available on our website by the end of February.
Sue also presented the new Beyond Fresh workbook at the Texas Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (TOFGA) Conference in Corpus Christi. Beyond Fresh is a guide on food processing for Texas farmers and food entrepreneurs. The book was produced in cooperation with the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT) and is available as a free PDF download or for purchase at $19.95 here and is also available at the Elgin Public Library. if you live in Elgin and want to buy a copy, contact Sue at sueb@TexasLocalFood.org.
Lastly we hope you’ll become a member of the Texas Center for Local Food or renew if you’re already a member! Memberships start at just $20/year. We hope we have earned your support and we’ll keep at it – together! Our Federal funding ran out last fall and – with your support – we’re keeping on keeping on.
We’ll update you again in March! Moving forward.. together,Sue and Travis