A letter from the Sammamish Valley Alliance on supporting local farmers:
Hello friends and neighbors in the Sammamish Valley and our surrounding communities. We hope you are staying healthy and employing safety protocols in both your homes and essential businesses during this difficult time.
The Board members of Sammamish Valley Alliance (SVA), and our partner organizations, want to keep you up to date on our current status. Due to current restrictions on public gatherings, we unfortunately had to cancel our SVA Spring Celebration, originally planned for this weekend, May 1-3, 2020.
In lieu of a spring public event we are prioritizing our promotional strategy to support our local farms, producers and agricultural businesses. We’re here to help you support our local farmers. If you’re looking for ideas, we can share several ways: stop by a farm or road-side stand; place a special order with a farmer; join a CSA (member subscription share); shop at a farm market or local farmers market; buy gift certificates as a gift or for future purchases; look for local produce (or request more) from your favorite grocery store; and, of course, donations are always welcome. (We have lots of ideas and resources if you’d like more details on any of the above.) Read more on the Sammamish Valley Grange website on how you can support local farmers.
Make sure you follow SVA on Facebook and Instagram for news and updates in our community as we are all ‘In This Together.’ And, cross your fingers and mark your calendars for our Summer Celebration of Farms & Pollinators (July 17-19) and Fall Harvest Celebration (September 25-27.)
Let us know if you have any questions, or information to share on what you’re doing in the community during this time. Never hesitate to contact us, we enjoy hearing from you. Stay safe everyone!
Support Local Farmers
The good news is that you can help! Many people are seeking out local farm products for the first time and wanting fresh food with a more direct supply chain between farm and market. Buying products from nearby farms, growing your own food, cooking with locally sourced ingredients, and volunteering in the food system will all contribute to proactively addressing climate change.
WHAT CAN YOU DO? In these unprecedented times, you can certainly make a difference as farmers have been hit hard. The closure of restaurants and food service programs who buy from local farmers provided essential and predictable revenue for many small growers and meat producers, even dairies and creameries. The closure of many farmers markets for a period of time (some closures continue) cut off access for farmers and customers to reach each other. Mass layoffs for loyal customers has meant fewer people buying local food. Farm workers, long under-resourced and without proper safety nets, are now considered essential workers and struggle without affordable health care.
Excerpt above from our friends and neighbors at 21 Acres. Read more here for more information and resources, and find out how you can help now!
For a growing list of Sammamish Valley farms and agricultural businesses,click here; compiled and published by our friends and supporters at Friends of Sammamish Valley.
