The Friends of Holcomb Farm hosted its sold-out Harvest Dinner and Silent Auction on Nov. 3, and raised almost $15,000 for its Fresh Access program. The event, held annually at the Metro Bis restaurant in Simsbury, featured a menu of fresh produce dishes expertly crafted by Chef Chris Prosperi. More than 35 items were donated by individuals and businesses from Granby and neighboring communities for the evening’s auction. The funds will be used to provide produce to individual Granby families in the form of CSA shares distributed through Granby Social Services, and to our institutional partners, including the Granby Senior Center, the Waste Not Want Not Community Kitchen, The Healing Meals Community Project, the Hispanic Health Council of Hartford, and Wheeler Clinic. We are grateful to all the donors, diners and bidders for their support.
The Wheeler Clinic is the newest of our partners, providing food, preparation instruction, and other health and wellness programming to constituents through its Albany Avenue location in Hartford. We will be growing this program in 2019, thanks to a donor-directed grant of $4,000 recently received through the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.
The Friends of Holcomb Farm Fresh Access program has been selected by Lost Acres Vineyard as one of its preferred partners for its December Giving Tree initiative. All month, every bottle of wine purchased will earn the customer a token, which can be deposited in a gift box for one of the partner organizations, including FOHF Fresh Access. At the end of the month, the Vineyard will donate $1 for each token to the respective organizations. The Friends of Holcomb Farm thanks Lost Acres Vineyard for including us in this initiative, and we thank all of you who will be purchasing this great local wine to support our cause.
We want to take this opportunity in the last Drummer issue of 2018 to thank everyone who has supported the Friends of Holcomb Farm—as CSA shareholders, by shopping at the farm, by volunteering in the fields, in the barns or on the trails, for fundraising, by being dues-paying members of the organization and by donating time, talents or treasures in the myriad ways you do—we wish you a great start to a happy and wholesome 2019. May the coming year be filled with warm sunshine and fresh food from our local farms.