Forest Hills CSA 2020 Season Contract

Hi, Prospective Forest Hills CSA members! Here is information about the 2020 season and the contract link. DISTRIBUTION Tuesdays, 4-8 pm June 2nd through November 17th the Church-in-the-Gardens, 50 Ascan Avenue in Forest Hills. SHARES AND PRICING VEGETABLE SHARES – 25 weeks – $598 (GEOF gets $598). NOFA certified organic.  Produce is picked fresh from the farm fields the day before distribution, boxed up, and delivered to us. This share contains 6 to 10 vegetables each week, depending on the season and availability. The share typically feeds a family of 3-4, but we have anywhere from 1 to 8 members who eat one share. Want to learn more about what is in the share? Look at the harvest calendar, and read previous season newsletters. Read vegetable guides and recipes to learn how to store and cook the vegetables that may be in your share. Want to learn more about our farm? Read about their history and farming practices. Half shares We do not offer half shares, but you are welcome to split a share with someone. If you feel that one share is too much for you or your family, we encourage you to find someone who can split it with you. Our recommendation is that share partners alternate picking up the full share every other week. If you prefer to divide each week’s share in half, we ask that you do so at home, and have one person pick up the whole share, as we do not have the room to keep half shares at distribution. If you do not know anyone to share with, you may post on our Facebook page to find someone. For those who are splitting a share, all members who are involved in splitting the share are responsible for the share’s volunteering obligation. Adults splitting a share are jointly responsible for completing all volunteering hours. MIDDLE AND LOW-INCOME VEGETABLE SHARES – MIDDLE-INCOME SHARES $448.50 (GEOF gets $598) LOW-INCOME SHARES – $299 (GEOF gets $598) Please see the chart below for income guidelines and note that they are for total PRE-TAX income (not take-home pay), and are subsidized by your fellow CSA members. Low and middle income shares are given out on an as-needed basis, to the extent that we can afford to subsidize them. Family size and income are calculated by the number of people eating the share (whether or not they are related) and those people’s total pre-tax income from all sources, not just salary. Subsidized shares are given out on the honor system, although the core group reserves the right to request supporting documents.   Family Size – Middle Income Share, Low Income Share: 1 –                <$32,000,                   <$20,000 2 –                <$44,000,                   <$27,000 3 –                <$55,000,                   <$34,000 4 –                <$66,000,                   <$41,000 5 –                <$77,000,                   <$48,000 6 –                <$88,000,                   <$55,000 As we did last year, low and middle-income shares will be accepted only as we have full-paying members to support them. We ask low and middle-income members to sign up on the waitlist, and they will receive an invoice when we can afford their subsidized share. FRUIT SHARES – 14 weeks – $92 This is a tree fruit share only.  Peaches, Apples & Pears. Conventional, Integrated Pest Management, Briermere Farm. Read more here. Our fruit share distribution is not a traditional CSA share-of-the-harvest model but is based on the Spend-Down Method. With the Spend-Down Method, CSA members pay a set amount of money at the beginning of the season. When the fruit starts to come into season (around the first week of July), the fruit farm starts giving a reasonable weekly quantity of fruit. This may be 1 or 2 portions, depending on what’s ripe to harvest. The fruit farmer continues to deliver fruit until the original payment is spent down. This is what Briermere farm prefers. 3-4 lb bag of fruit per week. Although there are no strawberries in the share, there will be strawberry picking available to FHCSA members at Golden Earthworm Organic Farm (sometime in June). Fruit-Only Members We have a limited number of members who only have one or two fruit shares. You are welcome to only sign up for a fruit share, keeping in mind that the membership fee is per contract and the 6 (or more) hour volunteer requirement applies to fruit-only members, as well. LEWIS WAITE FARM CSA EXTRAS – pay LWF directly for your order, both shares and à la carte ordering available. Deliveries once or twice a month. All members with a vegetable or fruit share may order from the LWF Network. You also have the option to be a LWF-only member, and not have another share. See below for more information.  Run by Alan and Nancy Brown, of Lewis Waite Farm. They partner with a number of other farms and small family-run businesses in upstate New York and Vermont to offer a wide array of products fresh from small farms. All FHCSA members will receive regular emails from LWF during the season with ordering information. We do not yet have the season’s delivery dates, but when we do, we will notify members.  Read more here. Lewis Waite Farm Network-Only Members We have a limited number of members who only order from LWFN and do not get vegetable or fruit shares. You are welcome to only sign up for LWF ordering, keeping in mind that the $20 member fee is per contract and the 6-hour volunteer requirement applies to LWFN-only members, as well. If you only want to order from LWFN complete the contract with your contact information, checking off no vegetable share, no fruit share, and checking that you commit to volunteering, to paying the member fee and read the Member Agreement and commit to it.  ADMINISTRATIVE FEE – $20  to pay for administrative/operating/mixed-income subsidy costs PAYMENT  Payment is via PayPal Business Payments or paper check. PayPal Business Payments is a little-known option through the Freshbooks invoicing and payment app, where we just pay 50 cents per transaction (and not the usual 2.9% plus 30 cents), which saves a lot of money. The sender must fund their payment exclusively using either (or both) their PayPal balance or their PayPal linked checking account. Credit cards may not be used. Once you receive your invoice, you will need to pay within 2 weeks. That means, I, Marina, need your check in my hand within 2 weeks (you may hand it to my doorman)  or your PayPal payment needs to have at least been initiated. If you know at the time that you sign up that you need more time to pay, I need to hear from you (via email, call or text) within 24 hours of you completing the contract so we can discuss your situation. REQUIRED VOLUNTEERING Our CSA is entirely volunteer-run. All members are required to volunteer. All members need to sign-up for volunteering hours once registration is closed. We estimate that members will need to volunteer 6 hours for the season. As always, we can’t commit to the exact number of volunteering hours needed until we know how many members we have. There are NO backups! Shifts valued as follows: Truck Unloading: 1 hour Distribution: 3 hours Surplus Delivery: 1.5 hours Volunteering Requirement: probably 6 hours. 6 hours = 2 distribution shifts, 6 truck unloading shifts, 4 surplus delivery shifts, or a combination. Remember, there are NO backups! We thank you in advance for taking your volunteering commitment seriously.

FARMER’S UPDATE

Our farmers believe that fresh, local, organically-grown food should be accessible to everyone. You’ll notice that there is a modest price increase of a little under $2 per week compared with last season.  This directly reflects the increased cost of production due to the new law in New York State mandating overtime pay for farm employees.  This is a huge change and one that is affecting every farm across the state.  Our farmers fully support this expansion of labor rights to the farm sector, but this will increase their payroll costs, and in turn, increase the cost of CSA shares. You can read more about the Farmworkers Farm Labor Practices Act here.

Farmer Matt will be trialing some new varieties of tomatoes, basil, squash, and greens.  They’ll be tweaking out the planting schedule to include some more of all your favorites.  As Matt and Maggie’s boys grow up (now 10 and 7), they are showing more and more of an interest in farming.  They’re looking forward to their sons joining them and carving out their own space to grow and learn on their family farm.  Galen is farming his own garden. 

Everything in our CSA shares is grown on Golden Earthworm’s family farm, washed, boxed and delivered to your neighborhood pick-up location. There is no middle-man, no warehouse, no extra handling, and no delivery fees. This is what a safe, dependable and transparent food system looks like.  

Our planet is rapidly warming and drying. Our food choices are more than a symbolic act.  As a consumer (and advocate) for local, sustainable and organic agriculture, your food dollars support farmers our farmers who work to regenerate the land, build biodiversity and draw carbon out of the atmosphere. You can read more about Regenerative Agriculture here. When farmers and members join together in a direct, tight-knit relationship based on mutual trust and a desire to make our food choices reflect our values, we can make real change.  

CONTRACT
Please click here to complete the contract and sign up for shares. If you have any questions, you are welcome to email info@foresthillscsa.com or call Marina at (917) 748-3186. Let’s be the change.  Together.  Please join us!   Anna, Marina, and Tom The Forest Hills CSA Core Group