Every year for Thanksgiving, Food AND Medicine, an affiliate of Jobs With Justice in Brewer (http://foodandmedicine.org/), organizes a Solidarity Harvest food-drive, collecting surplus produce and donated foods from local farmers and grocers. These locally grown Thanksgiving meals are delivered to over a hundred needy families of laid-off workers throughout the State of Maine. This holiday season, in the wake of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the need to stand in solidarity with our fellow Mainers is greater than ever. From one farmer to another, please consider endorsing the Solidarity Harvest as a local farm and, if possible, donating any surplus produce or other farm products you may have to Food AND Medicine in order to help feed needy families.
Food AND Medicine understands that this has been a remarkably tough growing season for farmers and gardeners in the State of Maine. With record low temperatures, record high precipitation, and countless pests and diseases (including a late blight epidemic) that devastated many of our crops, many Maine growers have fewer surpluses than in previous years and are financially strained. But as Thanksgiving Day approaches, let us not forget how fortunate we are as farmers to merely have land to cultivate, animals to tend, and homegrown produce to fill our markets, plates, and bellies.
Other hardworking families in our state are not so fortunate this holiday season. With the economic recession still underway and job losses continuing to accumulate, unemployment rates in Maine are higher than they have been in over a decade. Although struggling to stay afloat this challenging growing season, most farmers can still rest assured that our plates and bellies will be full come the Thanksgiving feast. The same cannot be said for the thousands of families in Maine whose sole or primary sources of income have been devastated by economic cuts and layoffs.
As local farmers, our relationship with local working class families is one of mutual support. Please support families in Maine who are struggling to get back on their feet, in the spirit and tradition of Thanksgiving, by endorsing Food AND Medicine’s 2009 Solidarity Harvest. I have attached a checklist on which you may sign up to support the Solidarity Harvest by either endorsing it, donating food, or volunteering to assist with various tasks involved in the effort. We would be tremendously grateful for any help or food you can provide. For farms that do not have any surplus crops available to donate, Food AND Medicine may be able to provide limited monetary compensation for some foods. Although sufficient quantities of squash, cider, and potatoes have been donated thus far, Food AND Medicine is still are looking for beets, carrots, onions, cranberries, and pie pumpkins (and could add other vegetables or farm products that might be available like leeks, cheese, eggs, etc).
For more information about the 2009 Solidarity Harvest, please read the attached flyer and visit the website http://foodandmedicine.org/page30.html.
Thank you, and Happy Thanksgiving!
Sincerely,
Thomas Young
Orizaba Farm
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