Birdhous Farm Store

The Birdhous "Co-Working Landscape" is a mission-based project, designed to offer affordable housing/land access to young farmers and other land-based entrepreneurs in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. Our residential "Roosting" program helps to ensure the future of farming is ethical, sustainable, and delicious.

In light of COVID19, the continued need for fresh, locally sourced food, and increasing anxieties about the dangers of close personal interaction: We intend to provide our community with safe, no-contact/self-serve access to local food, essential goods, and creature comforts in the farm stand space we've been renovating slowly over the last two years. We need your help to push this opening ahead of schedule to meet immediate need. 

Because our community struggles with food security even in the best of times, we will integrate a "food pantry" service to provide food at no cost to those in our community who need it. In addition to the money we raise here, this will be serviced through donation of a portion of birdhous-grown crops, charitable donations from our producer partners, and creating an avenue for local gardeners to donate excess from home/victory gardens without the unnecessary risks involved with inviting folks to their private homes.

This space will provide several essential functions with a ripple of benefits to our community: 
-Access to a worry-free shopping experience. This space will welcome one patron at a time, provide single-use gloves and all surfaces will be frequently sanitized. 
-Partnering with neighboring farms to provide a retail outlet where the future of farmers markets and farm-to-table restaurants is now uncertain in Vermont. Many of these farms are not in suitable locations for their own farm stores or are otherwise unable to welcome strangers and guests to their properties. 
-Connect our neighbors and build community in a time of social distancing by providing home-gardeners with a secure drop off point to share excess with neighbors in need. 
-Bolster the Birdhous project by providing our "Roosters" with a built in market for seasons to come, and making our mission and ethos clearer. 

This is our "coming out" party. You're invited. 

The money earned from this crowdfund campaign will allow us to outfit the renovated space: $5,000 will equip the space with a 3-door refrigerator, 2-door freezer, and a "grab-and-go" open face cooler. $4,000 will go towards the purchase of foodstuffs to be available at no cost to our neighbors in need. Any additional funds beyond the portion slated to cover IFW and credit-card processing fees will help to stock the shelves with our initial offerings. 

We'll be organizing our mutual aid efforts on the global do-good platform, ShareYourself. Click the link to join our team and stay involved.