Hello Farmlinkers!

My name is Trenton Newberry, and I am a fundraising team lead at Farmlink.

My role is to welcome new fellows to the fundraising team, cultivate donor relations, and help strategize our fundraising efforts. One of our major fundraising projects every year is the Peer-to-Peer Campaign. Peer-to-peer is an annual summertime campaign that encourages Farmlinkers to find creative ways to fundraise, raise awareness, and introduce to new individuals in their networks.

In Farmlink’s first four months of existence, we received nearly 7,000 donations, or about 45 donations per day, many of which were from individuals in our network. Simply put, Farmlink would not exist without the widespread generosity of individuals in the early stages.

As a grassroots organization, we rely on our community to support the health and vitality of the work we do. Peer-to-peer utilizes word of mouth and social media awareness to continually drive Farmlink’s growth and, in turn, our effect on the agrifood system. The fellows at Farmlink are hard at work executing creative peer-to-peer campaigns for this summer. Check out some below and see how you can get involved!

These three projects are destined to go down in Farmlink History, as are the dozens of other campaigns being run by Farmlinkers across the country. Here are some ways in which you can get involved!

1. First, tell your network about Farmlink. I’m talking about family, friends, not-so close friends, roommates, partners, exes, coworkers, passer-bys on the subway, even Peyton from your crocheting club that meets on Sundays… literally everyone.
2. Second, support an existing peer-to-peer campaign! We’d love to see you at our larger peer-to-peer gatherings! It’ll be a great chance to network and engage with Farmlinkers in person! If you are unable to make it, follow along on social media for live updates of each event.
3. Hold a fundraising or awareness event of your own and donate the proceeds to Farmlink! Be sure to contact us when you do and we can shout you out on Farmlink social media!

If you have any questions about Farmlink’s peer-to-peer efforts, please email trenton.newberry@farmlinkproject.org, and I am happy to help!

Thank you!

Trenton Newberry

_{These changes are great. But how’s it all going to be funded?}

‍During the comment process, Farmlink, as well as other food rescue organizations and coalitions, raised critical questions about how the strategy would be funded and, as a result, which measures are feasible. In particular, we hoped for more clarity beyond the draft’s statement that the USDA would use American Rescue Plan Act and Inflation Reduction Act funds and the EPA would use Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds. Of the 86 programs or initiatives reviewed in the final strategy, only 15 are completely new programs announced in the strategy. 

The other 71 are existing programs or initiatives that either already have a food loss and waste focus or that the national strategy has repackaged as food loss and waste solutions. While we had hopes of new, innovative programs being included in the strategy, the good news with these 71 programs is that most, if not all, are already funded, meaning that they are not reliant on an increasingly turbulent Congress for implementation. Of the 15 new programs, which included the EPA’s new consumer education campaign and several new cooperative agreements with land-grant universities, only 2 had specific funding mechanisms. It has become increasingly clear that food rescue organizations and other stakeholders in the food and agriculture space should not consider this strategy as a new rollout of FLW solutions, programs, and funding but rather as an evaluation of the current resources and solutions and how each can be most effectively utilized to achieve the strategy’s goals. In particular, the framing of many of USDA’s programs as FLW solutions offers opportunities to utilize existing funding, data, and infrastructure to solve one of the United States’s most pressing problems.

Whats next?

Now that we have the strategy, it’s time to truly take advantage of the opportunities it presents. In the immediate future at Farmlink, we’re excited to continue optimizing Section 32 as a critical on-farm food loss solution as we anticipate significant surplus recoveries in the fall. As we move forward, we continue to advocate for dignity with food distribution, emphasizing cultural appropriateness and quality in every pound of food we rescue. As outlined in our comments, food rescue organizations are critical stakeholders and thought partners for the agencies. Our inclusion in the strategy as such is an opportunity we are taking full advantage of to help guide federal action to support farmers, feed communities, and heal the planet.