Merry, bright, and everything nice! ✨
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Together we can do more! 🤝
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This month we completed an exciting collaborative project with Consejo Hispano and the Mi Gente Hispanic Leadership class from Astoria Middle School. Through this partnership, we identified a critical need for increased access to fresh, free food for Consejo Hispano’s community members, particularly during the months of November to February. Many families in the area, particularly those employed in the fish processing industry, face layoffs and a lack of paychecks during this time.
To help meet this need over the holidays, and with support from Oregon Food Bank, we purchased $4,000 worth of fresh, local food, including pork, beef, cabbage, celery, carrots, potatoes, beets, and bread from NCFW producers. 🥕🥖 We packed these into 100 food boxes, assembled with the help of 16 students from the Mi Gente class. Their enthusiasm made packing the boxes a breeze!
In addition to packing food, the students spent the day in our kitchen, learning how to prepare tacos de canasta and delicious homemade flan. 🍮 At the end of the day, Consejo Hispano staff collected the food and distributed the boxes to 100 families across the North Coast region, from Tillamook to Columbia Counties. 📦
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Market wraps up the year! 💪
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🎉 What an amazing yet challenging year it's been! We truly could not have made it through without our fantastic volunteers and your continued support. 💚
We just wrapped up our final market of 2024, and we're already looking ahead to 2025! 🗓️
Ordering will reopen on Sunday, January 5th, and our First Market Pick-Up of the year will be on Thursday, January 9th from 3pm to 7pm.
Happy holidays, we can't wait to see you all in the new year! 🛒 ✨
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Food and Beverage Entrepreneur’s Bootcamp
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We’re more than halfway through our first Food and Beverage Entrepreneur’s Bootcamp! This is our collaborative endeavor with Clatsop SBDC and Astoria Co-op, offering a comprehensive education in starting a local food business. Our inaugural cohort includes 10 participants representing 7 local businesses that are just getting off the ground.
It’s been wonderful to watch them, week by week, gain the knowledge, skills, and confidence to start their businesses on a solid foundation. What’s more, they now have a built-in support group, fellow entrepreneurs who can share opportunities and resources, vent about challenges, and just plain exist in the same space. It’s amazing how helpful it can be simply to know there are others in the same boat as you.
We are so excited about this group of folks and the amazing products they’re bringing to market! Here’s just one:
Astoria Ablaze. Walt Norman moved to Astoria in July 2022 from Phoenix, AZ, where he had been making fermented hot sauces as a hobby for several years. When he got to Astoria he started giving his hot sauces to his new friends, who encouraged him to start his own business. He is now in the process of starting Astoria Ablaze and transitioning away from a 30 year career as a Software Engineer. (Walt gifted the cohort some bottles of his hot sauce, and wow is it delicious! So excited to see this on store shelves soon.)
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Producer Presentation - A Sweet Wrap-Up to 2024!
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Last month, we wrapped up our final Producer Presentation of the year and it was SWEET in every sense of the word! 🍯 Julie Tennis from Bee Haven Apiaries took us on a deep dive into the fascinating world of beekeeping and honey harvests. 🐝
From bee lovers to honey connoisseurs, everyone walked away with new insights about these incredible pollinators and the liquid gold they produce. Did you know that if we paid bees for their labor in producing honey, one ounce would cost $1,658 in mileage and $16,170 in wages? Talk about a hard-working hive! 🐝 💼
We also learned that honey’s flavor, color, and consistency can vary based on where the hive is located, the time of year, and the flowers the bees pollinate. 🌸🌻 To top it all off, participants enjoyed a tasting of unique flavors from Julie’s three apiaries in Clatsop, Pacific, and Wahkiakum Counties. 🍯✨
Huge thanks to Julie and all of our local producers for making these events such a memorable experience. We can’t wait to bring you more producer-led presentations in the new year! Stay tuned for upcoming events. 🙌
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Our work to cultivate a resilient and equitable food system on the North Coast wouldn't be possible without our community of volunteers, our wonderful Board of Directors, and the donors that fund our programs!
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1152 Marine Drive
Astoria, OR 97103
Office: 503-468-0921
Market: 971-326-0598
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