Heather Latter
The Clover Valley Farmers’ Market recently submitted its idea of a “Community Food Box” program to the Aviva Community Fund and now is looking for locals to vote for their cause in order to earn some funding.
“We were told about it two or three weeks ago and we thought, ‘What have we got to lose?’” noted organizer Kim Cornell.
“I was surprised—in a day we had 42 votes.”
As of press time today, their idea had received 73 votes.
For more than a year now, food boxes containing an assortment of locally-grown fruits and vegetables have been distributed once a month to Emo, Rainy River, Atikokan, and Kenora to promote healthy lifestyles.
This project also supports positive economic development within the local farm community.
But Cornell noted storage and transportation are their two big obstacles.
“We want to do some sort of appropriate vegetable storage at the [farmers’ market],” he explained.
“We’ve got growers really keen to grow and we’re developing a program where there’s an outlet for that product, but storage is an issue.
“All the small growers can’t afford to do storage,” Cornell stressed. “So if we could offer storage, we could support the smaller growers.”
After storage, Cornell said transportation is their next challenge.
“We need to do something about refrigerated transportation, or obviously in January heated transportation,” he remarked, saying right now the CVFM directors are running around Northwestern Ontario with their own vehicles providing the service.
Those interested in supporting the local idea—and giving it a push to the finals—can vote at www.avivacommunityfund.org/ideas/acf3715
If the CVFM’s food box project receives enough votes, it will have a chance at sharing $500,000 in funding.
The competition currently is in the second round of the “Idea Entry Stage,” meaning people are now encouraged to vote for the ideas.
The 20 ideas that have the most support at the end of each round will move on to the semi-finals. The clock on the website indicates how much time is remaining in a round.
Round two ends in just two days so it’s important for people to vote as soon as possible.
If the CVFM’s food box idea does not make it to the semi-finals in this round, it automatically will be entered to compete in the third round—but the voting is reset to zero.
This way, those ideas get another chance to gather support and move on to the semi-finals.
In all, the 60 most popular ideas will become semi-finalists, which will be determined by Nov. 29.
“Our chances look pretty good,” Cornell enthused. “If people can spread the word, that would be great.”
He also noted people are able to vote more than once.
Meanwhile, those wanting to purchase a Clover Valley Farmers’ Market food box can do so by signing up there before the first Thursday of the month.
Pick-up in each of the communities takes place on the third Wednesday of the month.
The cost for the food box is $25.
