The Addison County Relocalization Network (ACORN) was founded in 2009 by community members to serve as a catalyst for developing local, sustainable and collaborative solutions to the challenges facing Addison County communities.

ACORN’s work started with the three basics: food, energy and money. In 2008, the energy work spun-off into a private business, the Acorn Renewable Energy Co-op.

ACORN incorporated as a non-profit in 2009 and gained 501(c)(3) status. The primary project focus of the ACORN Network has been to promote local food and agriculture.

From 2010 - 2012, ACORN employed an AmeriCorps volunteer to serve as its first part-time coordinator to manage network events, outreach and communications. This new capacity allowed board members to secure several grants from the High Meadows Fund, the John Merck Fund and the Vermont Department of Agriculture.

This funding went to research the supply and demand for local food, to the organization of a local food system council of farmers, processors, institutional buyers and retailers called the ACORN Wholesale Collaborative, to research the barriers to institutional purchasing of local food and to organize matchmaking events to bring new buyers and sellers together.

In retrospect, the AWC was too early - the local food system, on both the supply and demand side, was too thin to support it. Since then ACORN has continued to put energy into developing a wholesale market. We are organizing grower meetings, hosting consumer focus groups, working with institutional buyers and revisiting the potential for online sales and marketing to better connect the community. Read the reports here.

Please see a brief timeline of our history below:

ANNUAL MEETINGS

Check out our 2023 Annual Impact Report. Our 2023 Annual Meeting featured a panel of farmers talking about farming in a changing climate:

Our 2022 Annual Meeting featured a panel of folks working in Food Justice:

  • Wendy Giron, Addison Allies

  • Hannah Sessions, Vermont Land Trust + Blue Ledge Cheese

  • Emmet Moseley, Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity (CVOEO)

  • Isabela Bahadorzadeh, Middlebury College Knoll

  • Claire Contreras, Middlebury College Knoll + ACORN Board

Our 2021 Annual Meeting featured a panel of four women working in different sectors of the local food system:

  • Anna Freund, Local Foods Coordinator at HOPE

  • Samantha Langevin, Head Chef at American Flatbread, Middlebury Hearth

  • Laura La Vacca, Food Services Director for Addison Central School District

  • Pauline Stevens - Second Generation Farmer, Golden Russet Farm in Shoreham

Our 2020 Annual Meeting highlighted keynote speakers Ian McSweeney of the Agrarian Trust and Alison Nihart of the Vermont Agrarian Commons who introduced this innovative new farmland ownership model. We also learned about the second year of the Farmacy Food is Medicine program, the future launch of ACORN's Eat Local VT app, an improved Online Market, and what else ACORN has in store for 2021.If you missed this rich conversation about local food and agriculture programs, please watch a recording of it here. The presentation starts at 8:00 and the Agrarian Commons presentation starts at 27:30.

2015: Click here to see our 2015 Annual Meeting Presentation and learn more about what we do.