What a great year!

It’s always good to take a minute and reflect on the past year. Wow! We were busy. Our Good Food Day field trip program brought students from Montgomery County Schools to E.A.T. South for outdoor food and farm education, but we also hosted students from Birmingham, Greenville, and Opelika.

We also kicked off new programs this year. In partnership with the City of Montgomery Parks and Recreation Division and Big Cedar Education Foundation, we created a summer farm camp for Montgomery’s community centers. Twelve centers brought more than 300 youth to the farm for games, growing and pickles.

We also worked with Girl Scouts of Southern Alabama to create a day-long farm education program for Senior Scouts. Girl Scouts from all over Alabama - from Mentone to Mobile - spent a Saturday with us exploring the farm and food system.

We met many of you on the farm, too, at our first seed swap, Seedy Saturday, our family workshop series, Farmily Days, and our Farm in the City workshops aimed at getting your garden growing.

Volunteers donated more than a thousand hours of time to the farm and our programs. Cadets from Maxwell Air Force Base removed about two dump truck loads of garbage that had been accumulating on our hillside since about 1950. Max Credit Union volunteers pulled weeds and planted kale. School groups cleaned the chicken coop. And Master Gardeners and other plant-savvy volunteers spent hours teaching those thousand+ students on field trips.

We’re grateful for you, our volunteers, individual donors, the City of Montgomery, Montgomery County, and our program sponsors: Max Credit Union, AARP Alabama, Alabama Ag Credit, Ag in the Classroom, Alabama Farmers Agriculture Foundation, Whole Foods Market, Big Cedar Education Foundation and the USDA. Thank you!