Growing Good: Co-op Again Gifts $100,000 to Viva Farms in 2024

Last year, we introduced to you the Growing Good Fund – a fund established by the Board to further cement the Co-op’s legacy in the Valley, with a strong focus on the cooperative principle “Concern for Community.” So, in 2023 the Co-op donated $100,000 to Viva Farms through the Growing Good Fund, the single largest donation Viva had ever received! We celebrated with an event at the Lincoln Theatre in January and farm tours in the summer for our staff and the community.

And this year? The good keeps growing! The Co-op is proud to announce that we’re continuing this impactful partnership and donating another $100,000 to Viva Farms. Viva is a non-profit Skagit Valley organic farm and beginning farmer support organization with a mission to preserve sustainable farming and create a resilient and just local food system. Viva continues to train the next generation of farmers to care for our land, grow our food, and nourish our communities, and we are happy to be a part of those efforts.

Bringing the Barn to Life: An Update from Viva Farms

Happy New Year! An energizing way to mark the beginning of a new year is to reflect on the previous one. At Viva Farms, we are lucky to have our work ahead bolstered by small and large accomplishments that fuel our commitment to what we do as farmers, as eaters, and as Skagit Valley community members. In 2023, thirty-two students graduated from our Practicum in Sustainable Agriculture classes. Some of these students will launch their new farm businesses at one of our incubator farms in the coming season. We supported thirty-three independent farm businesses who continued their operations on-site last year, farming all available land on Viva’s 119 acres. These incubating farm businesses grew beautiful, organic produce for the region, selling to partners like the Co-op, the Puget Sound Food Hub, and Organically Grown Company. As an organization, we renewed our commitment to furthering our land access efforts with funding from the USDA, working to ensure that this generation of beginning farmers will have somewhere to grow food for the future. With annual highlights like these, we are inspired to keep moving forward towards a just and resilient food system.

And, like many of you, the team at Viva Farms is a bit surprised to find ourselves in the first week of 2024; we are thinking a lot about our goals and what we want the future to look like. As you may have heard by now, we dreamed up a big goal last year of replacing our old, dilapidated barn with a new multi-use farming facility that matches the scale and dynamic needs of the thriving beginning farmers in our valley.

We begin 2024 busy making The Barn at Viva Farms a reality. A large-scale construction project is an interesting measure of time. It has been a long year of intensive collaboration with our fantastic local partners at Ika/Schell Architects, so many lessons learned about County planning and permitting, and consultations with our farmers, partners, and neighbors. And here we finally are at the start of the new year, witnessing daily progress, as those of you driving State Route 20 will soon see for yourselves.

Our partnership with the Skagit Valley Food Co-op has been integral to this project and increasing our organization’s ability to support beginning farmers. In 2023, the Co-op donated $100,000 to Viva Farms, the biggest single donation we have received in our nearly 15-year history. And, kicking off 2024, they have astounded us by committing to do it again: the Co-op has donated an additional $100,000 to Viva Farms! Building a farming facility with a Good Agricultural Practices-certified wash/pack space, extensive cold and dry storage, and the right infrastructure for accessible loading from the field and for large distribution, is expensive. The Skagit Valley Food Co-op and its members have made this costly endeavor possible via the Growing Good Fund. Together, we are securing a more viable future for our local food system.

And, we are not done yet. We still have a gap in our fundraising to complete the project. We invite you to get involved and help us commit to the future of small-scale, organic farming in your backyard. Donations can be made at www.vivafarms.org/donate, or scan the QR code to learn more. For specific questions and further involvement, please email our Development Manager, Danielle Halstead, at danielle@vivafarms.org.

Barn rendering by Notion Workshop, architectural design by Ika/Schell Architects.

Help Build the Barn!

We invite you to help make this rendering into reality with a donation. Learn more at www.vivafarms.org/donate or scan the QR Code!