2025 ACORN Events
Upcoming ACORN Events:
Thursday, January 30: Food Hub Producer Feedback Session, 4:00-5:30pm. RSVP by emailing Jessica@acornvt.org
Thursday, January 30: Community Action Workshop with NOFA-VT and Liberation Ecosystem, 5:30-7:30pm. RSVP here.
Today we're thinking about people power. The climate is changing, and farmers are on the frontlines, weathering everything from floods and high winds to cold snaps and droughts. They are adapting every day, right along with the plants and animals they tend. But some impacts of climate change are too big, and need our collective response and support. Whether you are a farmer yourself, or you depend on farmers, we all need to take crucial steps to ensure our working landscapes remain in the hands of those who tend them and our communities stay fed.
Farmers give their all to nourish our communities and support climate resilience. We’re all counting on them. We need to make sure that farmers can count on Vermont.
Through a series of Community Action Workshops, we're organizing to secure state funding for a climate impact recovery fund for farms—the Farm Security Fund.
Let's get together and build the future we need.
Whether you're ready to lead the charge or are just curious to learn more, please join us!
Wednesday, February 12: Climate Tracking Tool Focus Group, 5:30-7:00pm. RSVP required. Email info at acornvt dot org for more information.
Thursday, March 20: Taste the Valley, details coming soon! Registration required.
Events Archive
ACORN hosts events to further support our mission of strengthening the food and farming community in the Champlain Valley. Check out some of our previous events below!
Agency of Agriculture Listening Session for Addison County.
Mark your calendars! Tuesday, February 13th, from 5 PM to 7 PM, Agency of Agriculture and ACORN will be co-hosting an evening of conversation in Middlebury.
Join us at the Champlain Valley Unitarian Universalist Society to casually chat plans for a changing climate, grant opportunities, business support, and your farm’s needs.
Parking, childcare, and light nibbles will be provided.
Please reach out to Sarah Mcilvennie for more information!
2023 Annual Meeting
November 29, 2023
We had a blast at our 2023 Annual Meeting! You can catch up on all the ACORN news by watching the recording above! Thank you to V Smiley and Minifactory for hosting us. A HUGE thanks to our wonderful panelists, as well:
Matt Bryan + Olivia Glascoe (Lower Notch Berry Farm)
Silas Doyle-Burr (Last Resort Farm)
AnnaJo Smith (Smith Family Farm)
Spence Blackwell (Elmer Farm)
Cooperatively Healing our Watershed Homes
November 9, 2023
Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op and ACORN were thrilled to host Abe Collins of The Land Care Cooperative and special guest speaker Mercy Larson of Larson Farm.
The event was a wonderful opportunity our community to come together to educate and organize ourselves as we begin a new chapter of cooperation with our farming neighbors to engage in the work of growing topsoil, increasing biodiversity, increasing the water-holding capacity of our soils, increasing groundwater recharge, practicing economic democracy, and beginning the long journey of effectively healing our watershed homes.
Nightmare on Exchange Street
October 26, 2023
ACORN hosted a Halloween-themed launch of our new Farmer Climate Network! Best dressed went to the Foxglove Farm family of acorns! How cute are they!?
Complete with a taco bar, wellness bar, Fiddlehead on tap, masseuse and DJ, we welcomed growers, and their friends and family members, to kick back at the ACORN Food Hub to enjoy a few hours of relaxation time.
We also gathered feedback for winter and spring working bees. These half and full day projects will prove that old adage that many hands make light work! Thanks to funding from the Vermont Council on Rural Development for the seed money to start the Network and working bees.
If you are a grower and have additional ideas for winter and spring working bee projects, please email Lilah.
Cultivating Food Sovereignty through Community
May 16, 2023
We want to extend a big thank you to Addison Allies, the chefs of Viva el Sabor, the staff at 51 Main St, and the Middlebury College environmental studies seniors who helped us pull off a last-minute end of semester celebration on May 16!
Addison Allies and ACORN collaborated with a group of 8 Middlebury students on a senior capstone project that researched the continued development of the ACORN Food Hub and potential commercial community kitchen.
We decided (three weeks before the end of the semester) to host an event to connect the students' research with our wider community so we can begin to build community support for this growing project. You all turned out in spades, with over 120 folks registering and just under 100 attending, and for that, we thank YOU as well!
We plan to continue hosting events like these to keep you all informed of our progress and to make sure we're on track to creating an inclusive space that best serves our whole community. Stay tuned!
To learn more about the project, read Aria and Louisa's op-ed in the Addy Indy here.
The ACORN Food Hub Presents: Taste the Valley
January 10, 2023
