We Dreamed Big and imagined a Farm
With the success of the greenhouse, the district offered the club the use of a 3 acre parcel near the elementary school. A 7 year business plan and drawing was presented and approved by the school board. We now had to turn the dream into a reality.
It started with a deer fence
If we were to have a chance to grow anything, we'd need to protect our plants from the deer. Using the funds from the vegetable start sales, we purchased the fencing, posts and gates. With the support of community members who loaned us equipment and talents, we cleared the area of stumps, laid out of fence lines, set the corner posts and pounded in the fence posts. We had the deer fence up and ready by late fall of 2019 and ready for the spring planting.
We're selected for a $86,000 grant!
As incredible as it was to receive the grant, the truth of the matter was we had to take a 7 year development plan and compress it into a single year. With fund received in June of 2020, we had 11 months to incorporate every aspect of the request or loose the funding. This was during the peak of Covid and social distancing restrictions (no student volunteers).
First we build the support areas and buildings
From greenhouses, storage units, training center (yurt), solar system for power, and wood chip pathways... it all needed to be installed before we could even think about planting our first seed or start. Our thanks to three generation of Hackett family member (Richard Sr., Jr. and Trey), Charlie Cobath, Connor Helton and many other key community volunteers for all their help and expertise. None of this would have been possible without their help.
