April Joy Farm 2026 Summer Update

2026 Farm to Heart CSA: Now Delivering

Thanks to your generous donations, we’ve launched our 2026 F2H CSA season- providing critical food access to 150 adults and 66 children across four low-income school communities.  This summer, we’re reducing even more barriers by providing home delivery to 100% of our families.  The joy of celebrating freshly harvested food with our community is palpable.  Volunteer Andrea shared what it’s like when she hands off the vegetables. “I wish you could see how their faces and eyes light up and hear how appreciative everyone is. It's really fun when the kids see the beautiful greens in the bags!!”

Farm to Heart Community Tables: A “Five Star” Success

Our Community Tables pilot wrapped this spring, and the results confirm what we hoped: for families, for farmers, and for community partners, our model is a collective, wholehearted win.

Over the 2025-2026 school year, we hosted a record 70 Community Tables events at four Title 1 elementary schools, delivering 28,232 pounds of fresh food in service of 938 student families.  We asked these families to evaluate their Community Tables experience, and we are thrilled to report that the average rating we received across all four school communities was 4.96 out of 5 stars.  

As one participant shared, “This project has been an absolute blessing and made a positive impact on my family’s ability to get and eat fresh produce.  It is a delight to see the local farmers and has been a good way to connect with the local community.”  

Farmers thrived too. We purchased $129,156 worth of fresh fruits, vegetables, herbs, proteins, and legumes from our network of 34 farmers.  Over 80% of our farmers noted that Farm to Heart was purchasing food they did not otherwise have a market for, representing an estimated $60,259 worth of increased farm revenue.

As one farm partner told us:

"[F2H] is the most direct route to both putting food on the tables of local families while directly supporting their neighbors growing the food. It’s an inspiring structure that just makes so much sense. And it does it in a way that both respects the humanity of the eaters by protecting their choice and individuality, while valuing the work of the farmers by paying for high-quality food so everybody within the system flourishes."

Farm to Heart strengthens more than farms and families — it strengthens the regional economy. Our latest analysis estimates Farm to Heart's Community Tables farm direct purchasing generated $329,350 in local economic impact: $129,156 in direct project value, plus the ripple effect of local purchasing and local wages. (Based on the Local Food Economic Impact Calculator developed by USDA and Colorado State University.) Farm to Heart’s circular food economy proves that family well-being, farm viability, and regional food security go hand in hand.   

Find Your Seat at the Table - Sustain Farm to Heart

I started Farm to Heart because I wanted elementary school kids eight miles down the road from me to have access to nourishing, locally grown food.  I wanted organic farms like mine to have an equitable market channel that honored the stewardship and care it takes to be a farmer.  Seven years later, this initiative, in the spirit of building a connected, healthy community and taking direct action in service of families and farmers, is firmly rooted and inspiring a cadre of partnerships that are actively dismantling the isolation and disconnection so prevalent in our society today.

In 2026, our success brings us to an inflection point.  Even with the weekly support of our incredible volunteers and school staff, there aren’t enough hours in the day for me to steward April Joy Farm, while leading all aspects of Farm to Heart, from packing boxes to raising funds. We are raising funds to hire a Program Manager to lead day-to-day Farm to Heart operations, to keep purchasing food from our farmers, and to support the infrastructure costs necessary to keep everything running smoothly.

We’re so excited to add a full time, living wage job to our community. Growing the Farm to Heart team is a huge step in our development! Increased staff capacity also means that I can pour my heart into the challenging, upstream work of deepening and expanding our partnerships, while crafting the strategies that will engender food equity for our entire region. 

Your generous gifts of time, talent, and resources contribute to stability for farmers and families in our community. The power of Farm to Heart is our collective ability to do good across the food system– from field to plate. With Farm to Heart, food dollars stay local, strengthening our economy.  Organic, regenerative farms are rewarded for their land stewardship practices.  Children and families facing food insecurity eat the best food, increasing their well-being. Our region’s sustainable family farms are essential infrastructure — Farm to Heart is an engine that powers them and we need partners like you to ensure our initiative has the resources to thrive.

We invite you to join in! 

If food work is where you feel called to build community and connection, we invite you to roll up your sleeves and find a seat at our table. If you want to provide in-kind services, volunteer, help advocate, or know a farmer or family that needs support, please get in touch. Together we can keep organic farms growing, families fed and create a nourished and resilient community.

I’m sending so much gratitude for your collective contributions - they are truly the sunlight and water that make our system flourish.

Joyfully,

April

 P.S. One of our farm partners recently told us: "Local food systems and food security programs like F2H are an investment in our community's health and resilience. There will come a time when we're supremely grateful we have built the community that we need."

We couldn't agree more!