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Their Newsletter Also Includes a Reminder of the Harmful Freeze on IL-EATS Funding
Today's email brought a newsletter from Rachael and Jesse Smedberg, the couple who own the Village Farmstand e-commerce local food aggregator in the Chicago suburb of Evanston and the Tulip Tree Gardens regenerative farm in Beecher, Illinois.
As Local Food Forum has previously published, Village Farmstand was hit three weeks ago with the terrible news that the building in which they have their brick-and-mortar processing and pickup location needed urgent repairs, requiring them to cease operations there until the repairs are made.
Since its founding in 2020 during the COVID crisis, Village Farmstand has been a valuable resource connecting regional small farms with consumers who want their delicious, healthy, sustainably produced food. While looking forward to the eventual re-opening of their storefront, the Smedbergs have been exploring alternatives, and their post had news about a pilot delivery service.
Good morning,
Thank you for your patience as we navigate the unexpected closure of our Evanston location. Rest assured, we are actively addressing next steps with our landlord. We are grateful to the City of Evanston for their vigilant partnership in ensuring that the necessary repairs at our Dempster location are progressing smoothly.
As we work through these repairs, we are excited to announce the pilot of a delivery service in collaboration with our partner, Top Box Foods. This service will initially be available to a select group of our dedicated Village Farmstand core customers. Once we've fine-tuned our systems, we look forward to launching this service to the broader community in the upcoming weeks—stay tuned for more details!
Local Food Forum wishes them luck on the delivery project and — selfishly — hope they are able to include my Chicago neighborhood in their future delivery zone so I can more easily avail myself of the wonderful farm-fresh products they source.
More About the IL-EATS Cutoff
Tulip Tree Gardens, the Smedbergs' other business, was one of the subjects of the March 5 Local Food Forum article about the abrupt and ill-considered decision by the administration in Washington, D.C. to cut off funding for the IL-EATS program.
Since its founding more than a year ago, IL-EATS (administered by the Illinois Department of Agricuture) has been buying food from local socially disadvantaged farmers for free distribution to individuals and families facing food insecurity. Tulip Tree Gardens has served as an aggregator of farm products, which is then delivered to people in need by the Chicago-based Top Box Foods organization.
Rachael Smedberg, in today's newsletter, kindly highlighted our article with a link.
Additionally, we encourage you to stay informed about the federal fund freezes and their implications for our farming community. Bob Benenson from the Local Food Forum articulates these matters eloquently. (article attached below)
Thank you for your continued support and understanding during this time. Together, we will overcome these challenges and emerge even stronger!
Please read and share this story. Over the nearly four years that I've published Local Food Forum, I've published a number of appeals to help individual farmers who have suffered severe damage from storms, fire, drought and even avian flu. But this is the first situation in which so many farmers, organizations, and people in need of healthy local food have been hit with a potentially devastating crisis at the same time.
Your attention and outreach to reverse this damaging action is needed.