🚨 Timely solidarity / mutual aid requests below! Please read the whole email! 🚨

Storytelling + Fondue at

ACORN's Annual Meeting

Local action, nourishing food and deep connection with neighbors feels good, and is invaluable for resilience. Please join us as we celebrate another year in local food, connect with friends new and old, learn how we can take action to support our community, and enjoy a delicious light dinner from farmer-chef Janis Reinke from Frog Hollow Farmstead and the Farmstand Cafe (there will be fondue!). 🫕 Locally sourced N/A beverages will be available to purchase.

In addition to recapping the last year, we’ll hear from storytellers from across the food supply chain:

• Thelma Gomez, Migrant Justice
• Changchang Ma, The Knoll Farm and Climate Action Fellow at Middlebury College
• Ava Murphey, Jump Rope Farm
• Jacob Powsner, Baird Farm
• Ellie, Foxglove Farm

Where: Champlain Valley United Unitarian Society, Middlebury

When: Tuesday, November 18, 2025, 5:30pm- 7:30pm

How: Registration is required to help us plan the food! RSVP using the button below. A sliding scale option is available in the registration process.

Relax with us, on us: Free Farmer Wellness Day

We are partnering with our friends at Rural Vermont to offer farmers and farmworkers a restful day at Middlebury's Marble Works on Sunday, December 7, 11:30am-3:30pm.

Please use the links below to RSVP to the event. We have group and individual wellness sessions:

• Restorative Yoga (group)
• Song Circle (group)
• Massage (individual)
• Herbal consultations (individual)
• Hydrotherapy (small groups of 4, but sign up as individuals within the same time slot to reserve as a group)

If you’d like to participate in an individual session, please sign up via this link. Register for lunch, tea and group sessions here. See the full schedule below!

Tea and chocolate will be served at Stone Leaf Teahouse throughout the afternoon, and a catered lunch will be served at Otter Creek Yoga. The entire day, and all offerings, are free of charge for farmworkers and farmers.

Many thanks to Otter Creek Yoga, Stone Leaf Teahouse and Green Mountain Shakti for hosting us!

Benefit Bake at American Flatbread - 12/2

As if you needed another reason to eat pizza!

American Flatbread Middlebury is hosting a Benefit Bake! As a way of giving back, American Flatbread will donate a portion of every flatbread sold that night to ACORN ($3 donation for smalls and a $4 donation for larges). 

Join us December 2 from 5-9 pm and support local food access and small farm viability. Eat in or take out! 🍽

Come break bread and have a glass of wine with us! 🍷🍕

Reservations are strongly encouraged!

Mutual Aid: Hurricane Relief for Jamaican Farmworkers + Updates on SNAP

Background: Category 5 Hurricane Melissa tore through Jamaica last week, ravaging the towns and homes where many of Vermont's seasonal farm and orchard workers live. Multiple farms and orchards have organized fundraisers to support these families:

• Vermont Apple Growers’ Support Fund for Jamaican Seasonal Workers Affected by Hurricane Melissa: To donate cash that will be split between all Jamaicans who work on VT farms, including Sunrise Orchards and Champlain Orchards please visit this page.

• Lewis Creek Farm: Help Jamaican Farm Workers Recover from Hurricane Melissa. The Workers at Lewis Creek Farm were particularly hard hit. These are the people who feed us. Donate to their recovery.

• Sunrise Orchards: Sunrise Orchards' owners are sending a shipping container directly to Jamaica next Tuesday. Support the workers by donating supplies and/or money. Supplies must be in good to excellent condition. Deliver to Sunrise Orchards (1287 N. Bingham St. Cornwall) before 10AM on Monday Nov. 10th. If you need help transporting items, contact Lauren at ogdenla@gmail.com

• Items needed:

Solar lights

Solar power generation systems

Camping water filters, water sanitizing tablets, straw filters

Chain saw safety equipment 

Any construction tools

Any landscaping tools

Files or other tools for tool upkeep

Work gloves

Tarps

Coolers

Nails & screws

First aid supplies

Rubber boots size 9-13

Sealed bags of kidney beans & long-grain rice and cans of unsweetened coconut milk

• To donate money directly to purchase chainsaws, generators and building materials that will also go in the shipping container, please contact Barney Hodges at 802.989.0255.

• Wood's Market Garden: We have created a GoFundMe page which can be accessed here. We also will be accepting donations of food and other goods that we will be shipping down to Jamaica in the coming weeks. Items that would be helpful include toothpaste, medium bristle toothbrushes, soap, shampoo, dish detergent, rice, dried kidney beans, canned sardines, white rice, canola oil, and flour. We will be accepting these donations at our farm stand via a bin left out daily to accept donations at any time. Please email us at info@woodsmarketgarden.com if you have any questions.

Background: SNAP was at Risk but a federal judge has ruled the USDA must release funding. We ask you to continue to support our communities as we head into the holiday season. Thanks to the Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op for outlining some of these resources:

• Round up at the Co-op checkout: Round up your change to support HOPE and CVOEO. To make a larger donation, simply tell your cashier. The Co-op will match every donation through November.

• Enter the Empty Bowl Auction and Raffle: This year, we’ve removed the match ceiling, meaning the Co-op will match every dollar of winning bids.

• Donate money and food to food shelves! Food shelves see demand spike around the holidays.
• Donate non-perishables during the Co-op's November 15 Food Drive: The Middlebury Congregational Church will be at the Co-op from 10 a.m.–2 p.m., collecting items to help stock the food shelf at HOPE. Hannaford has eliminated its donation bin so please visit the Middlebury Foods Co-op or Shaw's to donate shelf stable goods.
• Fresh goods: Consider purchasing bulk fresh items from the ACORN market and we can pass them along very easily to our neighbors at the Feeding Champlain Valley food shelf as well as HOPE.
• You can also deliver directly to your local food shelves.

• Spread the word: Tell friends, family, and neighbors about both campaigns, and encourage them to contribute.

Resources for Anyone Who Needs Help

If you or someone you know is facing food insecurity, housing stress, or other basic-needs challenges, here are local organizations ready to help. Click here to download a full resource list. 

HOPE (Middlebury): Food shelf plus supports for clothing, prescriptions, and housing assistance.

📞 802-388-3608 | 🌐 hope-vt.org

CVOEO (Middlebury): Offers food, fuel, housing, and other emergency supports.

📞 802-377-3741 | 🌐 cvoeo.org/addison-community-action

Vermont 2-1-1: 24/7 line to connect with food, housing, utility, and mental health resources.

📞 Dial 2-1-1 | 🌐 vermont211.org

Throughout the Year, Buy Local

ACORN's Online Market is loaded with fall and winter storage crops!

• November 9: Sacred Nap, a fundraiser for the Yoga Equity Project at Otter Creek Yoga, 7p-8p
• November 15: Co-op's Food Drive 10 a.m.–2 p.m., collecting items to help stock the food shelf at HOPE.
• November 18: ACORN's Annual Meeting, 5:30pm
• December 2: ACORN Benefit bake at American Flatbread Middlebury
• December 7: ACORN + Rural Vermont Farmer Wellness Day in Middlebury (farmers and farmworkers RSVP!)

We are grateful for every way this community continues to show up.

Cheers to weaving this network together,

Lindsey, Jess, Abby, Alexander, Alyssa and the ACORN Board

FINAL SHOUT OUT

Read La Via Campesina's manifesto written for the upcoming COP 30 in Brazil.

info@acornvt.org / www.acornvt.org