Snowy Mountain Farm Fire Recovery

On behalf of Snowy Mountain Farm, we are raising money to help support the restoration of their equipment and farm after a devastating fire.

First, some back story: Aaron and Carly and their two girls bought Snowy Mountain Farm in 2021. With over 70 varieties of organic orchard fruit and a small vineyard, the farm has kept them busy and hasn’t come without its challenges, none greater than this year. At the beginning of 2024, the region experienced an extreme cold weather event in January that plunged temperatures to -29C. In the following months, Snowy Mountain Farm began to see the severe damage this caused. Not only did it kill most of the fruit buds, but there is also long term tree damage. To make matters worse, an untimely frost during bloom, wiped out many of the remaining fruit buds. The entire region has been impacted. Sadly this means the farm has lost about 95% of their fruit. They have lost all cherries, apricots, peaches, nectarines, most of the plums, apples, and quince.

Then, on July 15th, a fire destroyed their cooler building and packing house, taking along with it the farm truck, all supplies for fruit packing and picking, fruit inventory, and numerous farm essentials. This is a huge blow after an already challenging year for the farm.

To quote Aaron and Carly: "We would be lying if we said we haven’t thought about giving up. Farming for young or new entrants is especially tough. With the high costs of land and interest, most young, new and small scale farmers like us have to take on lots of debt, making it especially hard to weather these storms year after year. This will be devastating financially for us but we remain hopeful. We are focused on getting through this year, thinking creatively about ways to be resilient.”

We're raising money to help with the restoration after the fire, specifically site clean up, temporary fruit storage and cooling solutions, electrical, harvest materials, market supplies, etc. We want to help will help Aaron and Carly harvest what fruit remains, and get them through the rest of their season.

Your generosity will go a long way, and will be greatly appreciated.

With love,

The Bartsch and Godard family