‼️ ⚠️ This particular email includes timely, important Calls to Action. Please read the entire email, and if it is cut off midway, please click to read in a new window! ⚠️ ‼️

Join us for ACORN's Annual Meeting

We're finding joy in connecting over local food!

Local action and deep connection with neighbors is incredibly needed right now. 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 again!). 🫕

In addition to recapping the last year, we’ll host another storytelling panel with folks from across the food supply chain:

• Thelma Gomez, Migrant Justice
• Changchang Ma, The Knoll Farm and Climate Action Fellow at Middlebury College
• Jacob Powsner, Baird Farm
• and more!

Where: Champlain Valley United Unitarian Society, Middlebury

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

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

Hi ACORN community! We need your input!

This year, we're thrilled to consider launching our very own CSA Program! We'd curate a weekly box that features diverse, high quality local foods for you to enjoy through the winter season, for pick up at the ACORN Food Hub in Middlebury every Wednesday afternoon.

While we have ideas for what shape(s) this might take, we wanted to ask YOU what you'd like an ACORN CSA share to look like. Please take 5 minutes to help us co-create this brand new offering!

Please fill out this brief survey to let us know if and how you'd use this service!

We are thrilled to welcome new customers Snug Box, Philo Ridge Farm, Rutland Northeast Supervisory Union (RNESU), and Middlebury College's Weybridge House and Solar House to the market these past few months. Support these businesses, schools and organizations who are supporting our local farms! 💜

AND we welcome new-to-the-market producers Champlain Orchards, Cornwall Cattle Company, Little Seed Coffee Roasters, lu*lu ice cream, Vermont Cranberry and Black Dirt Farm.

The market is open every Friday at noon through Monday at 10am.

New Food Hub Warehouse Coordinator:

Alexandre Apfel

We welcomed our third Food Hub team member, Alexandre, in September! You may recognize Alex as the alchemist behind Golden Rule Mead, also located off Exchange Street. Alex is filling the very big hole left when Alicia, our ECO AmeriCorps service member, had to step down earlier this summer due to that program losing federal funding.

Alex has quickly learned the warehouse and delivery van ropes and is integral to us getting more local food out to the community. We are so grateful to have him on board!

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!

Calls to Action on Hunger, Healthcare + Climate

Being a network in our community is at the heart of our mission, relaying information across the many distinct and intersecting threads that make up our foodshed. This means we've been attending many meetings to stay updated on the ongoing cuts and changes to our webs of social support. We have a few calls to action to report out across local, state and federal levels:

• Background: SNAP is at Risk!
• The federal government shutdown is in its 22nd day, and SNAP (3SquaresVT) benefits for November are at serious risk. If we don’t act now, many Americans will lose access to critical food assistance. Currently, the federal government doesn’t have enough money to fund SNAP fully in November. If the shutdown continues, EBT cards may not be available after November 1. The USDA hasn’t made a final decision about SNAP, but some states have been warned that the EBT system could be shut down next month.
• On Monday, Hunger Free Vermont asked the Emergency Board to allocate $12.4 million to ensure SNAP benefits are paid in November and no one loses their benefits if the federal government shutdown continues. HFVT will attend a special meeting on 10/29 with the House Human Services Committee.
• Stay tuned for future opportunity to support this ask

• DONATE food to food shelves! With pending cuts to SNAP, food shelves expect demand to spike in the very near future:
• Shelf stable goods: 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.

• Encourage our federal delegation to hold the line: “Protect Affordable Health Care!”

• Organize for Single-Payer: Vermont Workers Center is building power for single-payer and organizes Medicaid Mondays. Get in touch to share your story with other Vermonters.

• Show your support for passing the Vermont Farm Security Bill this upcoming legislative session by signing this petition

• Share feedback on the draft Addison County Regional Economic Development Strategy (REDS)
• Comments can be submitted directly on the website
• Alex (ACEDC) and Adam (ACRPC) will be hosting office hours to discuss the plan. 
• Alex is available by appointment on Fridays. Please set an appointment by contacting Alex
• Adam will be available from 3:00 – 5:00 p.m. on Mondays in October or by appointment. Please contact Adam 

Resources for Farmers + Farmworkers

Concerned about health care coverage next year? If you're on the exchange and looking at next year's plans during open enrollment, call:

• Legal Aid’s Healthcare Advocate Line! (1-800-917-7787)
• They can help you navigate which plan is best for you.
• Last year’s tax return is helpful.
• Don't be shy; there is no info. you can give them that would affect your application

Share your stories with state legislators in November. Committees want to know how farmers are being impacted by the cuts to health care. Let Jess Hays Lucas at NOFA-VT know if you’d like to submit testimony: jessica@nofavt.org 

Join the Local Food Count (part of New England Feeding New England)

Throughout the Year, Buy Local

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

• October 25: Weybridge House Feast, 28 Weybridge St, Middlebury, 4:30pm
• November 9: Sacred Nap, a fundraiser for the Yoga Equity Project at Otter Creek Yoga, 7p-8p
• 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 save the date!)

We are increasingly grateful to be in community with you.

Cheers to the abundance of the fall harvest, to those saving seeds, and to those planting seeds for future harvests of all kinds,

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

FINAL SHOUT OUT

Listen to "We Planted Grapes", by poet, friend and Central VT farmer Katie Spring

info@acornvt.org / www.acornvt.org