Happy 7th Day of Christmas, and happy New Years' Eve!

I’m wrapping the calendar year up with an easy one for me: City Fresh. Moving away from Ohio this year, City Fresh is, aside from individual people, the thing I miss most. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a non-profit Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) group, connecting small farms in the area to people who’d like fresh, tasty, local veggies. It’s also the only CSA group I’m aware of with a social justice mission, seeking to make good food available to everyone. They offer at-cost pricing to folks with limited incomes, and accept Ohio Direction, the local SNAP/EBT program. About one-quarter to one-third of their shareholders receive this at-cost pricing. Donations help cover some of the gap of operating the program and making sure our farmers get paid properly.

City Fresh is also the most fun I’ve had doing social justice work, and the best thing I’ve done with food outside of a kitchen. If you’re looking for a good way to get connected to the local foods scene, or want to help build a more equitable food system, consider helping out! They’ve got pickup locations all over the region.

This is sort of an awkward time of year to hype City Fresh, since there are no shares for you to sign up for currently, but you can (and should!) donate any time of year. This is obviously the “slow” season for City Fresh, but there are still folks planning for next year, lining up stop locations and volunteers, fixing the truck, and tending the farm, all year round. And absolutely sign up when the season starts in the spring!

(On a personal level, City Fresh was also the first time I was able to apply my CompSci skills to a large project with a real “mission”, which felt really good and was also very eye-opening. Now I’m constantly looking for more opportunities to do the same again.)