Hey there friends!

It took a while to get all the rewards made and then sorted, packaged, and addressed, but they are finally ready to send! Woo hoo! Thanks for your patience, they'll be sent out early this week so check the mail! Also, if you requested a tax donation letter, those will be arriving separately from our fiscal sponsor, the San Francisco Parks Trust.

We made extra of a few of the rewards and put them up on an etsy shop, so if someone you know may be interested in a "wonderful fruits of San Francisco" calendar, or some jam recipe cards, they could check them out here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/ProduceToThePeople

The following Thank You letter is included with all the rewards, but I wanted to post it here as well for the folks who chose not to receive a reward:

Hi there!

Thank you for supporting Produce to the People in our recent kickstarter fundraiser! Thanks to you, we raised a total of $10,223 in direct community support!

But where will the $ go?!
We strive for transparency and believe that you should know what you are investing in when you spend your hard-earned money on our project. This is the plan:

-- $6000. Create a modest six month director stipend to get started moving
towards a more sustainable business model for the organization.
-- $1350. Pay off our liability and youth group insurance through Dec. 2011.
-- $1540. Put aside for 2011 youth program (with potential to hire a summer
program assistant), as well as miscellaneous tools and supplies.
-- $1330. Pay all the fees associated with kickstarter, amazon payments, and our
fiscal sponsor (which we are happy to do, as we appreciate these services).

One of our intentions with the kickstarter campaign was to illustrate to future funders the community interest and support backing our organization. Since the close of the pledge drive, we have managed to leverage the funds raised and received two grants earmarked for the development of the Free Farm (SFPT Innovator Award- $1500, RSF Social Finance- Amount TBD), and one grant earmarked for our Summer Youth Program (Foundation for Sustainability and Innovation- $3000). We believe that the pledge drive is living up to it’s name, a kickstart, and we are determined to make the most of every dollar as we move forward.

If you requested a tax receipt for your donation, you will be receiving it separately from our fiscal sponsor, The San Francisco Parks Trust. Please feel free to contact me at producetothepeople@gmail.com if you have any questions about your donation.

Sincerely,
Lauren Anderson

Director
Produce to the People

Hey Everyone!

WE MADE IT!!!

I am so excited, amazed, overwhelmed. I'm still not sure how to express my gratitude, so I'll just start with THANK YOU.

Thank you for believing in the power of this work, and believing that a small, grassroots effort can make a difference. To the folks who pledged, folks who wrote beautiful emails to all their friends and family, folks who clogged up their blogs/facebook walls/twitter feeds on our behalf... Thank you. I feel so humbled and so empowered by the experience and everything to come. A million times Thank You.

I will be back in touch after the weekend (big pear harvest!) requesting everyone's info for tax receipts, blog shout-outs, and any details about rewards. If you need any help with amazon payments, I admittedly don't know much, but get in touch, I'm sure we can figure it out together.

Much love,
Lauren

We still need your help!

The Produce to the People pledge drive ends Sept. 29th and we still have a ways to go! We have a private donor offering a double match up to $1,000, meaning that every donation we receive up to $1,000, will be met with double that amount. So when you donate $5, we get $15, and when you donate $100, we get $300. Even with this generous match offer, we still need to raise at least $1,600 (outside the matching funds) in the next 5 days to make our $10,000 goal.

We have always believed in the adage that it takes a village- and we are asking for your support. We have learned time and time again through our partnerships, volunteers, neighbors, and friends, that a strong community is made by individuals investment in it. Produce to the People has come this far by way of all the gracious and inspired help we've received, and we know we have the potential to do so much more with a broader support base. Any amount you can donate (pledges start at $3) will be greatly appreciated, and a another step towards our goal.

Thanks so much to everyone who's donated, spread the word, watched our video, and all the folks that have helped pick fruit, grow produce, and make healthy food more accessible to everyone in our community.

All my best,
Lauren

We have 10 days left and a whopping $4,405 to go!

Please help us out by spreading the word, let people know that you donated and that you believe in the work we do, the food we share, and the community we build. Collectively, you are all our best resource, word of mouth is the way we find new trees to harvest, meet folks who want to garden, and get the word out to garner support to keep the organization going. Thanks for all your help!

Again, just to make it easy on you, here's the link!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1216293948/produce-to-the-people-community-through-food

For more news, I just got back from a whirlwind cross country drive with Case, our summer program assistant, as he was heading home to Columbus, OH after finishing up his year of service with LVC. We thought this was a great opportunity to check out a small, small taste of other urban agriculture, food justice, and just good old fashioned home food gardening that's going on outside of the amazing little bubble of action in the bay area.

It was a brief but jam packed and wholly inspiring trip, and I've been slowly but surely processing all the amazing things we saw and gathering all the thoughts and images into posts on our news and events blog. So far there are posts up for:

Prescott, AZ (http://producetothepeople.blogspot.com/2010/09/prescott-az.html)

Taos, NM (http://producetothepeople.blogspot.com/2010/09/taos-nm.html)

and soon to be posts on Little Rock, AK, Liberty, TN, and Columbus, OH, which you can check back for towards the end of the weekend. I feel somewhat overwhelmed by the whole experience, especially by knowing that we were really just scratching the surface of all the awesome projects that are happening across this country (let alone across the world!).

Here are a few pictures from the trip just to give you a little taste!
All my best,
Lauren