UNADILLA COMMUNITY FARM EDUCATION CENTER INC

In 2025, Unadilla Community Farm Education Center Inc's Beginning Farmer Training Program provided services to 76 people, including 7 participants in our Farm Fellowship, 1 student intern who received internship credits, 6 participants in a guided tour of the food forest, and 51 participants through Day Volunteering and Community Volunteer Days. The Farm Fellowship was a season-long, in-depth educational opportunity with a dual focus on both classroom and hands-on learning, wherein a total of 7 Fellows learned how to efficiently design and implement sustainable farming practices at-scale. Additionally, a guided tour of the food forest was held during 2025, providing an educational opportunity to 7 tour participants. Finally, our Day Volunteering and Community Volunteer Days offered an opportunity for the surrounding community to come help out on the farm, learn new gardening skills, and assist with production and harvesting for our food access and herbal aid work. Volunteers can count their hours towards experiential course credit requirements, community service requirements, and volunteer paid time off programs for corporate employees. The Beginning Farmer Training Program incurred $17,802.18 in programmatic expenses during 2025.

Unadilla Community Farm Education Center Inc's Food Access Program consists of partnerships with local food pantries across Central New York to provide free nutrient-dense fruits, vegetables, and culinary herbs for their clients. Our nonprofit is located in, and serves communities in, USDA designated low-income, low-access, urban & rural food deserts. Feedback from the food pantry partners that we work with across the region indicates that they are under increased pressure to address rising food insecurity, which has been exacerbated by the pandemic, inflation, and recent SNAP cuts. Pantry partners frequently share with us that there is a lack of fresh produce available to their clients, and that some fresh produce programs that were available as a result of COVID relief funding have since dried up. By increasing the amount of high-quality fresh produce available to their clients, we can both improve nutrition for food insecure communities and reduce their family food budgets, freeing up family funds for other needs. In 2025, the Food Access Program delivered free produce to 15 food pantry partners across Central New York State, donating produce valued at $45,814.40. Our food pantry partners then distributed our produce to an estimated 7,078 people, based on the estimates of our food pantry partners on how many people they serve on a regular basis. The Food Access Program incurred $32,902.09 in programmatic expenses during 2025.