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New facility in Morrisville could multiply the produce this nonprofit redistributes from farms

Salvation Farms’ staff member Martha Machia (left), and Karyl Kent (right), Director of School Nutrition at Mount Mansfield Union School District, with products from Salvation Farms.
Salvation Farms
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Courtesy
Salvation Farms’ staff member Martha Machia (left), and Karyl Kent (right), director of school nutrition at Mount Mansfield Union School District, with products from Salvation Farms.

A Lamoille County nonprofit that connects Vermonters with food from local farms will get a new processing facility in the old Walgreens building in Morrisville.

Salvation Farms is among the 37 nonprofits, schools, health centers and municipalities — plus the Passamaquoddy Tribe — awarded $24 million in federal funds by the Northern Border Regional Commission (NBRC) last month. The NBRC secured those dollars through the Congressional delegations of Maine, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont.

“What’s consistent about all the projects receiving funds from the Commission’s fall competition is that they will create economic opportunity and improve day-to-day life for the people who call this region home,” said Chris Saunders, federal co-chair of the NBRC, in a press release.

Salvation Farms currently works with 40 or so farms in Lamoille County and the Northeast Kingdom to redistribute their surplus potatoes and beets, zucchini and carrots — whatever they have available. The gleaning program harvests the produce for charitable food sites. And the Vermont Commodity Program pays farmers for already-harvested produce that it then processes and sells to schools and prisons at a lower-than-market price.

“Our focus is on those institutions that traditionally haven't been able to afford local food,” said Salvation Farms’ executive director Kelly Dolan. “This past year, we harvested 71,435 pounds of food.”

She said the new processing hub in Morrisville should multiply that.

Dolan expects they’ll wash, sort and pack 150,000 pounds of produce during the first full year of operation, on top of the 70,000 pounds they glean annually.

Construction on the food processing hub is expected to start in the spring, and Dolan said she hopes the project will launch by late summer.

Salvation Farms’ executive director Kelly Dolan.
Salvation Farms
/
Courtesy
Salvation Farms’ executive director Kelly Dolan.

Salvation Farms plans to partner with local workforce development organizations for staffing.

“We would have three production staff and then also somebody that would be supervising the program,” Dolan said.

She added that the larger goal is to contribute to the vision outlined in the Vermont Food Security: Roadmap to 2035, which she helped work on in a previous role at Vermont Farm to Plate.

“Really what the hope is is that by the year 2035, all that live within the state of Vermont are able to access the food that they want, that reflects their cultural preferences, their personal preferences and their nutritional needs,” Dolan said.

Salvation Farms’ food processing hub is budgeted to cost just over $1 million, and has received funding from the state Agency of Agriculture in addition to the award by the NBRC.

Dolan said on Tuesday that Salvation Farms hasn’t heard anything about this award being impacted by the Trump administration’s efforts to temporarily freeze all federal funding. (That freeze is currently held up in court.)

“We're not entirely sure, but we're kind of just taking the information as it comes and remaining optimistic,” Dolan said.

The NBRC said on its website last week that it is “currently reviewing the guidance from the Office of Management and Budget” and postponing the training for its most recent grantees.

“Once this review is complete NBRC will reschedule sessions that have been postponed,” the website reads.

Have questions, comments or tips? Send us a message.

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Elodie is a reporter and producer for Vermont Public. She previously worked as a multimedia journalist at the Concord Monitor, the St. Albans Messenger and the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript, and she's freelanced for The Atlantic, the Christian Science Monitor, the Berkshire Eagle and the Bennington Banner. In 2019, she earned her MFA in creative nonfiction writing from Southern New Hampshire University.

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