It is with great sadness that we announce we are closing our Evergreen location for our 2023 Local Food Share season.
Though we hope to be back in 2024, here is the story of our time in Evergreen and our decision to close for this year.
We opened our Evergreen distribution site in 2019 with the help of many community partners such as the Evergreen Middle School and ESA (Evergreen Sustainability Alliance). We worked with wonderful individuals (you know who you are!) who advocated for GoFarm opening in Evergreen and helped us expand our reach to more community members. We are forever grateful for your support! We are especially grateful for the Evergreen Middle School for allowing us to utilize their parking lot to host food distribution throughout the growing season. Thank you for being our trusted partner!
Over the course of 4 years, we have:
Provided shares of food to over 275 households
Worked with 2 Early Learning Childhood Centers in mountain communities, providing food for their scratch kitchens
Partnered with ECHO food bank to provide food donations
Partnered with ESA (formerly Evergreen Sustainability Alliance) and the Evergreen community gardens to host refill stations and provide food for annual events
Countless conversations, recipe sharing, and friends made from our weekly distributions
Over the past 4 years, GoFarm has not only expanded our Local Food Share program, but also our work with food pantries, mobile markets, and supporting beginning farmers. With this, we have stretched our internal capacity and resources thin in order to run all of our weekly operations. So we have decided to take 1 small step back, to catch our breath and allow our infrastructure to catch up with us. We feel that simplifying our Local Food Share program by reducing distribution sites for the 2023 season, will benefit the health and well-being of our staff and interns, and allow us to prepare for the long term sustainability of GoFarm. Our goal by simplifying our processes in 2023, is to put stronger infrastructure in place and reopen our doors in Evergreen in 2024.
If you have been a shareholder in Evergreen in the past, we would love to offer you a discount if you would like to sign up at one of the Golden or Arvada locations. You can email us at localfoodshare@gofarm.org to receive the code.
We have enjoyed getting to know each and every one of you, and have had so much fun spending our Wednesday afternoons in your beautiful community.
We hope to see you all again in 2024!
