A New Delivery Van for Karl’s Farm
Donation protected
Karl's Farm is proud to have been growing and delivering amazing vegetables in and around the Washington, DC area for 12 years. We started from the ground up: clearing the land, cultivating the soil, and sowing the seeds to grow into an established provider of healthy, sustainable produce. In these years we have shared our harvest with hundreds of people, giving metro families access to local, nutritious food. Now, after 12 years of serving our community, we need to ask for your help. We need $7,000 to buy a new van to keep our CSA delivery business going.
Our 16 year-old delivery van is catastrophically broken; it is beyond repair. To make matters worse, our 22 year-old backup vehicle, which we have always been able to rely on once or twice a season, has now also broken-down and simply not worth fixing. Both are sitting dead in our driveway, unusable and unfixable.
We are fortunate to have been able to borrow a vehicle to make deliveries this summer and continue serving our subscribers. It does the job, but it is old, loud, ugly and guzzles gas. Through our business of providing sustainably grown, local harvest to the metro community, we have prided ourselves on leaving a small footprint. This vehicle, while a boon in our time of need, is simply not a long-term solution. We can’t keep farming if we can’t deliver to our consumers in DC. We need a new van. For that we need your help. Together, we can put a van on the road to get our vegetables to our supporters.
A new (used, but new to us) van will cost $7,000. While this is a significant investment, the stability a more reliable vehicle will provide us is worth so much more. With a new van, we’ll be able to customize the interior to add shelving, cooling systems to expand our products, and finally implement our compost collection plan.
Farming involves a lot more than chucking some seeds in the ground. Over the years we have learned time management, marketing, route planning, data entry, disaster preparedness, database creation, small engine repair, carpentry, surveying, conflict resolution (very important when you work with your significant other), and problem solving. Sometimes there are problems you can’t solve alone. Sometimes it takes many hands.
Please consider contributing to our fund for a new van so that we can continue to deliver fresh, local produce to the DC metro area. If 28 people donate $250 each, or 70 people each donate $100, or 140 people chip in with $50 each, or 350 people donate $20. Whatever you can give, we are grateful for your support.
About Karl’s Farm
Karl’s Farm is a small Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm located in southern Maryland. All the work is done by Karl and Paula from the planting and weeding all the way through to the harvest and delivery to your home in Washington, DC. That’s right, you can have your CSA share delivered to your door and still meet the farmer!
From the beginning, 2004, we have been using natural and sustainable methods to grow a wide variety of vegetables and herbs for our CSA supporters. We also raise free range chickens and added egg shares in 2013.
As vegetable lovers as well as farmers we grow food for our table and yours without any pesticides, herbicides, fungicides or synthetic fertilizers. We believe that good soil produces good vegetables and so we feed the soil in addition to feeding our CSA supporters and we would like to feed you too.
Our 16 year-old delivery van is catastrophically broken; it is beyond repair. To make matters worse, our 22 year-old backup vehicle, which we have always been able to rely on once or twice a season, has now also broken-down and simply not worth fixing. Both are sitting dead in our driveway, unusable and unfixable.
We are fortunate to have been able to borrow a vehicle to make deliveries this summer and continue serving our subscribers. It does the job, but it is old, loud, ugly and guzzles gas. Through our business of providing sustainably grown, local harvest to the metro community, we have prided ourselves on leaving a small footprint. This vehicle, while a boon in our time of need, is simply not a long-term solution. We can’t keep farming if we can’t deliver to our consumers in DC. We need a new van. For that we need your help. Together, we can put a van on the road to get our vegetables to our supporters.
A new (used, but new to us) van will cost $7,000. While this is a significant investment, the stability a more reliable vehicle will provide us is worth so much more. With a new van, we’ll be able to customize the interior to add shelving, cooling systems to expand our products, and finally implement our compost collection plan.
Farming involves a lot more than chucking some seeds in the ground. Over the years we have learned time management, marketing, route planning, data entry, disaster preparedness, database creation, small engine repair, carpentry, surveying, conflict resolution (very important when you work with your significant other), and problem solving. Sometimes there are problems you can’t solve alone. Sometimes it takes many hands.
Please consider contributing to our fund for a new van so that we can continue to deliver fresh, local produce to the DC metro area. If 28 people donate $250 each, or 70 people each donate $100, or 140 people chip in with $50 each, or 350 people donate $20. Whatever you can give, we are grateful for your support.
About Karl’s Farm
Karl’s Farm is a small Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm located in southern Maryland. All the work is done by Karl and Paula from the planting and weeding all the way through to the harvest and delivery to your home in Washington, DC. That’s right, you can have your CSA share delivered to your door and still meet the farmer!
From the beginning, 2004, we have been using natural and sustainable methods to grow a wide variety of vegetables and herbs for our CSA supporters. We also raise free range chickens and added egg shares in 2013.
As vegetable lovers as well as farmers we grow food for our table and yours without any pesticides, herbicides, fungicides or synthetic fertilizers. We believe that good soil produces good vegetables and so we feed the soil in addition to feeding our CSA supporters and we would like to feed you too.
Organizer
Karl's Farm
Organizer
Indian Head, MD
