Historic Minnesota Farm Donates 9,000 Pounds of Food to Food Shelf
The historic Oliver Kelley Farm in Elk River, MN grew and donated over 9,000 pounds of food to a local Elk River food shelf this year. The food shelf is the Community Aid of Elk River (CAER).
The Oliver Kelley farm usually welcomes about 40,000 visitors per year, according to the Star Tribune. Of course, that was much different this year as they weren't able to host hardly any visitors due to COVID. That was the same for other farms who are a part of the Minnesota Historical Society, they were only open for a few days this year.
Since the education gardens weren't being used to educate visitors they decided to turn them into "pandemic victory gardens" and donate the produce grown to CAER. The Star Tribune writes that CAER "serves about 150 families a week from Elk River, Otsego and Zimmerman."
In the end, the Oliver Kelley Farm donated over 9,000 pounds of food to CAER, which is a massive amount of fresh food! The Oliver Kelley Farm site manager, Anders Mayland said they produced more food than he thought they would. The Oliver Kelley Farm isn't the only farm that donated to CAER this year. In total, CAER has received more than 17,000 pounds of fresh produce from local farms.
The farm's plan now during the winter is to grow lettuce indoors that will then be donated to CAER and then in the spring they'll continue to grow food for the food shelf.