Foothills Foodworks Partnership
Alan Day Community Garden is excited to support Foothills Foodworks in their efforts to bring free, nourishing, locally-sourced meals to the Oxford Hills community. As the fiscal sponsor for Foothills Foodworks, ADCG anticipates an enduring partnership with the organization, helping to meet the needs of our neighbors, friends, and family.
With over 5600 packaged meals distributed to Western Foothills residents since the start of the pandemic, Foothills Foodworks has grown rapidly thanks to great community support. Starting as a small project to connect with local farms, restaurants, and community members, Foothills Foodworks (FFW) has become a reliable source of healthy packaged meals cooked with local ingredients and by community members. Working cooperatively with already existing distribution sites at four local area food pantries allows our nourishing meals to go to community members who are already accessing resources and streamlines our efforts by avoiding any redundancy in the distribution system. We also started distributing with our new partner and Fiscal Sponsor, the Alan Day Community Garden (ADCG) for people unable to make it outside of Norway. Foodworks purchases ingredients from several local farms, along with Fare Share Food Co-op and Cafe Nomad to source ingredients not available locally. Community members are becoming familiar with where their food is coming from and how they can buy local food at places like the Farmer’s Market at ADCG and Fare Share, or restaurants that also buy from these farms, like Cafe Nomad. Beech Hill Farm, Shady Grove Mushrooms, and Bumpus Farm are becoming more common to community members that were once only familiar with names like Perdue and Tyson.
As businesses slowly reopened, restaurant worker’s availability to cook with us decreased. FFW connected with two Maine organizations- Community Concepts and Eastern Maine Development Corporation, and partnered with their workforce training program. Our first local community member joined us through the program and is now working as a regular employee making a fair wage. The program has helped them to regain housing and custody of their children.
FFW is looking forward to expansion with other pantries and increasing distribution in the region, and having more people join the team through our community partners. If you are a farmer, local business owner, or community member looking for ways to be involved or help out, please feel free to contact Project Manager, Chris Borden. Remember, local FoodWORKS for farmers, cooks, and community!
Chris Borden
(207) 318-1199