PFP’s Record Breaking Year!

FARM

Harvest and Donation Summary 2015

This year’s numbers for our record-breaking growing season are in! In 2015, our farm crew (with some help from our wonderful CSA shareholders) harvested 183,366 lbs of produce, which is not even taking into account the amount gathered from the pick-your-own option of our CSA. This is an incredible increase of 32,000 pounds (or 21%) from last season. With this huge increase in production, we were able to provide 428 lbs of food per full season large share. That means CSA members with full shares came away with an average of 19 lbs of our delicious fruits and vegetables each week! Our team’s impressive harvest totals also meant being able to donate 7,328 more pounds of produce than in 2014, for a total of 34,555 lbs this year! Of that total, 21,086 lbs were donated to our six Food Share partners, and 13,469 lbs were distributed to our sponsored CSA shareholders. These record-breaking totals are the results of our hard-working all-star team, our dedicated members, and the continued investments we’ve made into our production systems, especially our new irrigation system!

EDUCATION

Education and Outreach Summary 2015

Our education team has also had a very exciting, record-breaking year! In 2015, a total of 7,016 unduplicated individuals benefited from our Education and Outreach programs, more than tripling our reach of 2,109 individuals from the previous year! It is such a privilege to offer children and adults of any age, ability, or background, our dynamic educational programming, and this year we seized every opportunity to teach. Through countless outreach events, PFP engaged an astounding 2,059 adults, and 3,075 kids. In direct educational programming, we reached 844 adults and 2,082 kids. With an education department of merely two passionate, ambitious people, this work could not have been made possible without the hard work of several volunteers, dedicated education interns, generous donors, and the support of PFP as a whole.

In addition to hosting regular farm visits where students have the opportunity to engage in lessons exploring academic curriculum outside of the classroom, PFP increased its educational reach through expanding the following programs:

Farm Visits for students (kindergarten through college), campers, and scouts
Seeds of the Food System with Dutchess County Probation, River Haven Youth Shelter, and Green Teen Beacon
Using Gardens to Teach Summer Institute for educators
Garden Workshops with students and teachers in their own school gardens
Vegetable tastings at PCSD cafeterias
Gardening and nutrition workshops in the community
Educational outreach at various community events including: La Guelaguetza festival, the Poughkeepsie Plenty Mobile Market launch, and the annual backpack and school supplies giveaway event at Christ Episcopal Church

And adding two new programs:

Farm Fresh Home Chefs cooking workshops for families
Junior Chefs cooking classes for children and teens