Happy New Year y’all! Here at the Rural Action office, we’re busy making plans for the growing season and eagerly watching the light return. Every evening when the sun sets a bit later, the spring feels a little closer — especially given the blast of warm weather we felt this weekend. Seventy degrees in mid-January…wowza! As we put together next year’s auction calendar (keep your eyes out folks), we’re taking a moment to reflect on the last growing season.
2019 was our most successful year yet! We saw a 22% growth in sales from 2018 due to the great produce season, the additional auction we added, and the growing support from customers. The auction brought in 12 new sellers and 89 new buyers. The top-selling produce item was tomatoes. Thank you to everyone who came to the auction, made food for the potlucks, baked pies for Pie Day, and supported this community. Most importantly, thank you to our farmers for growing such beautiful and delicious produce day after day.
Take a minute to look back on the year in these photos, taken by Megan Westervelt.
Molly Sowash is a national service AmeriCorps member with Rural Action‘s Sustainable Agriculture team. You’ll find her at the Chesterhill Produce Auction loading produce, checking customers out, or making friends with the livestock. She studied Creative Writing at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN and lived in Minneapolis for three years before returning to her roots in Ohio.
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