2024-2025 Annual Appeal
Dear Friends of Canticle Farm,
Peace and all good! Our twenty-third growing season has seen some plots lying fallow, but the time has been spent positioning Canticle Farm to fulfill our mission statement to “connect all peoples, to practice Earth-friendly habits and to come to a realization of a Creation-centered spirituality.”
At the North Farm, we have completed purchasing for a new community garden, complete with demonstration plots and a mud kitchen for the kids, as well as two yurt-style dome tents that will host service-learning retreats. We hope that these new educational and reflective spaces will open doors for new groups of people to (re)connect with our beautiful river valley, with the food they eat, with one another, and with the Creator that unites them all.
In 2025, we will merge the CSA distribution and retail sales into our North Farm market building. CSA shareholders will have more ability to choose the vegetables that they prefer to eat, and can choose a “Hands-On Share,” in which they pay less for their share by contributing work alongside the field crew. In 2025 we will also build new capacity to serve our communities, supported by Western New York Foundation’s iCAP Core program. This prestigious program will provide consultant expertise and board education, but also implementation support when it comes time to put our new plans into action.
Many in our region have realized what you, as a Canticle supporter, already know: our food system is brittle and full of inequities. Times are hard for small producers and consumers alike, and the poor suffer most of all. We at Canticle Farm are working not only to grow vegetables, but to grow people who understand the value of good healthy food, and to strengthen our communities by rebuilding our local food system. Thank you for your partnership in this beautiful, hopeful journey. Please give generously, mindful of how generous the land has been to us.
Sincerely,
Aaron M. Gies, Ph.D.
Board chair
Canticle Farm
Peace and all good! Our twenty-third growing season has seen some plots lying fallow, but the time has been spent positioning Canticle Farm to fulfill our mission statement to “connect all peoples, to practice Earth-friendly habits and to come to a realization of a Creation-centered spirituality.”
At the North Farm, we have completed purchasing for a new community garden, complete with demonstration plots and a mud kitchen for the kids, as well as two yurt-style dome tents that will host service-learning retreats. We hope that these new educational and reflective spaces will open doors for new groups of people to (re)connect with our beautiful river valley, with the food they eat, with one another, and with the Creator that unites them all.
In 2025, we will merge the CSA distribution and retail sales into our North Farm market building. CSA shareholders will have more ability to choose the vegetables that they prefer to eat, and can choose a “Hands-On Share,” in which they pay less for their share by contributing work alongside the field crew. In 2025 we will also build new capacity to serve our communities, supported by Western New York Foundation’s iCAP Core program. This prestigious program will provide consultant expertise and board education, but also implementation support when it comes time to put our new plans into action.
Many in our region have realized what you, as a Canticle supporter, already know: our food system is brittle and full of inequities. Times are hard for small producers and consumers alike, and the poor suffer most of all. We at Canticle Farm are working not only to grow vegetables, but to grow people who understand the value of good healthy food, and to strengthen our communities by rebuilding our local food system. Thank you for your partnership in this beautiful, hopeful journey. Please give generously, mindful of how generous the land has been to us.
Sincerely,
Aaron M. Gies, Ph.D.
Board chair
Canticle Farm
Donate here to MARKET RENOVATIONS: Floor Refinishing, Office Space Upgrades and New Shelving for our market building at Canticle Farm North
Donate here to EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS: New Community Garden and Riverside Service-Learning Retreats at Canticle Farm North
Donate here to GENERAL OPERATIONS: Areas of Greatest Need
