Updated: 4/23/20

Greetings Friends and Neighbors,

By the warmth of the woodstove I write this note, just in from helping to assemble the historic, hand-crafted pavilion that will provide a new home for Friday Bread Gift Distribution, an event that has quickly outgrown the parking and space under the pop-up tent in the Bakery driveway. Going into week four, it seems fitting to describe one of the central relationships that both seeds and sustains the varied efforts and logistics of giving away hundreds of loaves of bread every week. The newly-assembled ornate steel pavilion, the patch of ground that it now sets on, and the grass parking field across the street and South from the Bakery have all been offered as goodwill gestures – gracious gifts – by Jubilee Farm and its willing caretaker and captain, my dear friend Sarah Jane Williamson. May the warm winds of Springtime blow gently upon her doorstep, and her dormant garden beds. The Food Gifts offered by Brush Brook Community Farm and Bakery are grown, gathered, prepared and given away from this specific and special place – where the Brush Brook flows into the Huntington River – birthplace and fertile home ground to some dreams now finding their way toward the light of day. Here is what you will find in this week’s newsletter:

• Invitation for Friday 4/24 Bread Gift Distribution
• Volunteer Opportunities
• How to Sustain the Farm and Bakery – Financial Requests


Invitation

Bread Gift Distribution

All bread will be offered without charge – this week 240 loaves.

Friday 4/24, 4:00pm – 6:00 pm
Brush Brook Community Farm & Running Stone Bread
4582 Main Road, Huntington VT.

Look for parking signs when you arrive and please respect precautionary distancing guidelines.

Bread varieties this week: Mountain Bread, Polenta, 3 Seed, Rye, Sprouted Grain, Backcountry Loaf(gf)

Would you consider coming by for bread for your household, and possibly one or two loaves to drop off to someone on your way home?

Volunteer Opportunities

We will be having an outdoor Work Day Saturday 4/25 from 3:00 – 5:00 pm with various project that allow safe physical distancing:

  • brush clearing (bring gloves and loppers, hand pruners, pruning saw or chainsaw if you have)
  • fence building (bring gloves)
  • greenhouse cleanout (bring gloves, wheelbarrow and a garden- or pitchfork if you have one)

Here is a list of other projects that can be worked on alone or in a smaller group for those who want to help but are unavailable for the Work Day:

  • Fence Building/Brush Clearing (Contact Adam at 802.922.2808)
  • Bakery Firewood (Contact Adam at 802.922.2808)
  • Farm Carpentry (Contact Zakari at 518.241.9880)
  • Setup and Parking Director for Friday Bread Distribution (Contact Adam at 802.922.2808)
  • Vegetable Processing for Friday Soup Distribution (Contact Adam at 802.922.2808)

How to Sustain the Farm &  Bakery

Financial Requests

Last week’s Newsletter contains a detailed description of the social/cultural/environmental experiment that we are calling an Agricultural Gift Economy, including the Vision and Root Convictions that guide the work. Here are a few of those Convictions:

  • We all live here in this valley together.
  • We all eat food in order to stay alive.
  • We could, collectively, ensure that nourishing, locally raised food is available to everyone who lives here without any barrier to access. This plays out as a practice of radical hospitality.
  • We could, at the same time, care for the soils, forests and rivers of this place, renewing a commitment to deeply sustainable agriculture. This plays out as a practice of ecological repair.

As this experiment is brand new, and things are growing and changing every day, we have begun with a budget for just TWO WEEKS. Next week’s Newsletter will contain some longer-range financial projections. Here are two questions to consider:

  • Does it seem worthwhile to extend this kind of hospitality to everyone who eats food in our community with no barrier to access?
  • If so, are you willing to consider making a financial gift to support the work? There will be no other stream of funding other than these personal financial gifts.

I will cease to have other paying work, as the Bakery joins this Gift Economy experiment. The rest of the farm team — Erik, Collin, and Ava – will continue to maintain outside jobs, and so have requested only modest financial gifts to enable their work at the farm over the next two weeks. There are dozens of other neighbors who continue to give many hours to these efforts who have asked for no financial assistance.

There are two ways to give gifts: 

• You can make out a check to:
Brush Brook Community Farm

and mail it to: PO Box 202, Huntington, Vermont 05462
or drop it by during the Gift Distribution.

• You can also make donations online through this website by clicking the "Donate" button to the right above.

Many thanks for your interest. See you tomorrow at the Bread Distribution!
With great care,

Adam Wilson and the Brush Brook Community Farm Team

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