Subsidized Produce from Local Farms
Become a member of Healthy Food For All
Everybody Deserves a Fair Share of the Harvest!
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) shares provide a large quantity and variety of fresh organic produce to feed your family every week.
Our Audrey J Cooper CSA scholarship program offers historically excluded, zero to very low income households the opportunity to receive a share on a sliding scale or at no cost.
To request an application, please complete this form.
For assistance, please contact: info@HealthyFoodForAll.org / (607) 241-0469
About the Audrey J Cooper CSA Scholarship Fund
In honor of the life and legacy of Ms. Audrey, community leader and human rights advocate, Healthy Food For All established the Audrey J Cooper CSA Scholarship Fund to ensure no community member was excluded from experiencing the joys and nourishment of our local bounty. Ms. Audrey inspired HFFA from our inception to fight for healthy food as a human right.
No Payment Necessary
HFFA members receive a scholarship to cover up to 100% of the cost of a CSA share, based on need.
Members who elect to use their SNAP benefits towards their CSA can do so at any time. Contact us for details on how to use your EBT card to help cover the cost of your produce.
FLOWER discount at GreenStar Co-op
HFFA members qualify for discounts to help you afford food, wellness and household items at GreenStar through the FLOWER program. Find out more here.
Free U-Pick Gardens, Cooking Classes, Herbalism Education & Member Events
As a member with Healthy Food For All, you will have the opportunity to join us for fun and educational on-farm events, cooking classes and member meals that celebrate our beautiful landscape of local farms, seasonal bounty and culinary diversity. Enjoy picking fruit, flowers and herbs, and learning about Food as Medicine from nutritionists and plant medicine from community herbalists to promote your health and wellbeing. Join HFFA’s Whole Health and Nutrition Culinary Manager, Lechandre Mix, local farmers and fellow CSA members to build community through connecting to the land and breaking bread together. Fill your belly and nourish your soul with wholesome food grown and prepared with love.
Support Your Local Farmers
Regardless of whether an HFFA member makes a financial contribution towards the cost of their produce, Healthy Food For All pays local farms in full to cover their expenses of growing us the highest quality food to nourish our community. By joining HFFA and eating locally, you are helping to support local family-owned organic farms!
The credit for the introduction of the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) concept – which has led to over 12,000 thriving CSA farms across the country today – most often goes to either European or Japanese models that were first adopted by two farms in the U.S. in 1986 in New England. But as is often the case with African American history, there is an overlooked story that tells us the credit should at the very least be shared with another pioneer whose contributions and ingenuity came years ahead of his time.
Beginning in the early 1970s, when the prevailing food system was saying “get big or get out,” Whatley encouraged “smaller and smarter” as the key to farm viability. He believed that small farms should leave the farming of commodity crops like cotton, corn and soybeans to larger industrial ag, and instead focus on a diversity of high value crops like berries and vegetables; specifically what “grows and sells well where you live”.
Whatley championed direct marketing: he recognized that the key to success didn’t just lay in growing great food, it was equally about selling it. Whatley’s innovative idea was to market to a loyal group of customer subscribers who would pay a membership fee to come to the farm to pick their own produce. He called these “clientele membership clubs”.
“The clientele membership club is the lifeblood of the whole setup. It enables the farmer to plan production, anticipate demand, and, of course, have a guaranteed market.” This is exactly the definition and value of what we know today as CSA’s.
CSA benefits members, farmers and the earth!
CSA members are guaranteed a supply of fresh, quality produce over the whole CSA growing season. In addition, when you become a member, you gain the unique opportunity to connect with the land on which your food is grown and experience the fragile beauty and natural richness of our ecosystem. CSA is also an opportunity to build relationships with your farmers and fellow CSA members.
CSA provides farmers with a guaranteed source of income to help them plan and cover the cost of growing food in ecologically and socially responsible ways. This arrangement eases their financial burden and boosts their viability and capacity to grow good, clean food for their community. And because HFFA’s farms use sustainable agricultural practices such as organic, biodynamic and regenerative farming, they are helping to protect our natural resources, improve water quality, help draw down greenhouse gases, increase biodiversity and restore ecosystems. By becoming a CSA member and participating in Community Supported Agriculture, you are supporting a food production and distribution model designed to heal our planet while nourishing our community, now and for generations to come.
Healthy Food For All’s CSA scholarship program is for historically excluded, zero to very low income households. Through a partnership with United Way, we can also offer assistance to ALICE households (families that don’t qualify for public assistance but fall below the Household Survival Budget). For more information and to request an application, please complete this form.
For further assistance, please contact info@HealthyFoodForAll.org / (607) 241-0469
Our Summer CSA season begins in June =)
To request application materials, please fill out this form.
If you have any questions or would like assistance, please contact our Member Happiness Team—we’re here to help!
info@HealthyFoodForAll.org or call (607) 241-0469