Update: You all have helped Our Harvest raise over half of the $35,000 and we secured the refinancing loan needed! Now we need to finish just under $15,000 and worker-owner Zeke Coleman has decided to do a match of donation funds for up to $700 and another community member just agreed to add an additional $800 to the match – a $1,500!
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Read our previous update below:
Dear Our Harvest community supporters,
We are reaching out to ask for your help. We stand at a precipice. We will either need to close at the end of the season or be given a new lease on life, positioned for profitability. Our Harvest has been struggling under a crushing debt load since it began. We can’t manage it any longer. We have an exciting and unprecedented opportunity to reduce and refinance the majority of the debt on much more beneficial terms. However, for Our Harvest to continue beyond December 20, we must both refinance the debt as well as raise $35,000 from our community. In this way, Our Harvest will be positioned for profitability.
Over the 8 years, the paths of sales, and production, and distribution are now clearer than ever. The extraordinary worker-owners have gotten wiser and wiser about what it takes to be successful. We've made it through valleys many times - deep ones. But this one is larger than we can survive alone.
We want our customers and community to have the opportunity to do something to save Our Harvest rather than have no say at all in the fate of such a rare, rare gem, an operation that embodies and executes every fundamental good that is needed for us humans to have a shot at real wellness as a community:
real food that actually has vitality, hand delivered right to your neighborhood
living soil
a farming operation that sequesters carbon & builds soil health
outreach - helping get food where food is needed
an attitude towards workers and ownership that develops, not stifles
education and development of farmers (practicum site for Cincinnati State)
To be viable, we've got to have our debt restructured. We've been working hard on it, and there's a good chance this will be approved. We've also got to find some $35,000 in donations to cover the gap for the year. Both of these things have to happen for us to continue. If they do, we can survive, and we can be successful.
Will you be a part of keeping Our Harvest around for us? Do you know someone who would want to help us? We need to find people to
donate or become community owners
find donors or community owners
get on our volunteer and steering team
We would ask you to email kristen@cincinnatiunioncoop.org if you're able to help.
Thanks!
Kristen, Our Harvest Board President
