FOOD CONNECTS

The Food Hub saw a 27% Year over year increase - nearly $4M - in operational revenue in 2024. We grew our network of partners to over 150 vendors and 350 customers, 116 of those customers being school accounts. In the process we funneled over $3M directly back to the region's farmers and producers, boosting our regional economy. We stayed true to our roots promoting farm to schools, selling $723,059 - an 80% Year over year increase - to regional schools, from Kindergarten to higher education. That includes $206,679 towards summer food boxes, which provided 280,000 free regionally sourced meals to students in Southern VT and Keene, NH. We continued the expansion of a new 10,000sqft warehouse space, which will house 1600sqft of added refrigerated and frozen storage capacity in early 2025.

The Farm to School program provides coaching and technical assistance to educators and food service directors. Our program is a leader in the regional farm to school movement to connect classrooms, cafeterias and communities to local food. In 2024 our team served 16 member schools, helping those schools' farm to school teams achieving meaningful farm to classroom connections for their students. Our Farm to School program also leads Vermont's statewide Harvest of the Month program, which provides educational material and hands-on learning opportunities connecting K-12 students to a specific monthly harvest. Our Farm to School team also offered program-related Professional Development to teachers, Trauma and Food Workshops that advance knowledge and practices on the ways food and trauma are intertwined. Lastly, Farm to School continued its sprout kit initiative, delivering 1,308 sprout kts to member schools. Each student in participating classrooms received their own tray, soil, seeds for planting, and watched their plants come to life.