Happy Hills Farm Feed-A-Family Fundraiser

Hello Everyone!

We are Miche + Dan Hayden, 1st generation farmers who own and operate Happy Hills Farm in Rossland (and Flourish MicroFarm + The Rooted Table Collective!).

We are using GoFundMe to do our 2023 annual Feed-A-Family Fundraiser.

This is the third year we are running this program, and this year we are doing things a little bit differently. In the previous two years, we have fundraised to feed families a weekly bag of fresh produce delivered to their door.

This year our fundraiser is taking on a different structure.

This year we use all of the funds raised to make regular weekly fresh donations to the food bank throughout summer and fall. By doing the fundraiser in this manner, we will spread out the produce more so it can feed more people, rather than just choosing a few families to receive weekly bags of produce.

We are excited to share that we will be making fresh vegetable, egg and meat donations to the Rossland Food Bank, the Trail United Church Food Bank, and the Beaver Valley Food Bank. We are thrilled to be opening our Feed A Family program to the greater surrounding region. We will work closely with each food bank to ensure they receive the freshest food from us at optimal times for client pickups, and in a capacity that isn't overwhelming for volunteers to manage. Our Food Banks are run by incredible community members, and we want to make our program as seamless for them as possible.

We will grow, harvest, process, package and deliver our farm fresh foods weekly dependent on the Food Bank client pickup schedule. Our vegetables are grown by hand following organic standards, and it is our mission to grow the highest quality and most nutrient dense food we can. This will be our 6th year growing vegetables at our market garden in Rossland - which is British Columbia's highest elevation vegetable farm!!

With food insecurity on the rise (more than 5.5 million Canadians are food insecure) we believe it is even more important than ever to ensure that everyone has access to good, nutritious food.

Throughout 2021 and 2022 we raised more than $6000 and fed community members with more than 180 bursting bags of fresh vegetables. We also fed 5 families a complete holiday/christmas meal in 2022. These donations are made possible due to the amazing generosity of our community.

Through our farm we aim to build a stronger healthier community through good food, and our Feed A Family programs are integral to this initiative.

This year we will begin our farm fresh donations to our amazing Food Banks starting in June, through until October (or longer, depending on how much we can raise!).

Please join us in ensuring that people in our communities and Greater Trail + District region have good consistent access to nutritious fresh local food this season. Every dollar counts and every dollar will be matched with amazing food from our farm.

We will post weekly updates on our social media sharing updates on how much we have raised to feed our communities, and how much we have donated to our partner Food Banks to date, so you can watch our progress throughout the season with this initiative. We will also share regular updates through our email newsletter.

Thank you for supporting us as we strive to continue to feed our community!

Miche + Dan

(Together with our kids, who always help - Calla, Mica, Cedar + Clementine!)