Greetings GTF Friends & Supporters:
We’re kicking off our first annual fundraising campaign. Our goal is to raise $200,000 in this initial campaign. We’ll use those funds to acquire needed capital equipment (including a second farm), to hire a farmer to supplement our currently all-volunteer staff, to improve our operational efficiencies, and to fund operations. You can donate HERE, and you can learn more about our progress by reading this Progress Report and checking out our Happenings website page.
Our Results:
We’re operating at full production in the farm and are off to a strong start in the community. In our first nine months of operation, we’ve grown and delivered over 3,800 pounds of fresh produce to our clients, including 14,000+ heads of lettuce and more than 700 pounds of our leafy green products. We have two food pantry clients, Loaves & Fishes (L&F) and Caring Community Cupboard (CCC).
What’s Next and What We Need:
Within weeks of making our first delivery to L&F in the early fall of 2024, other food pantries began to ask us to supply them with fresh produce, and we were able to add CCC as our second client. Since the beginning of 2025, due in part to the material decline in the public funding that was focused on reducing food insecurity, those calls have increased as local food pantries struggle to find sources of fresh produce for their clients. We would like to respond to this growing need by increasing our capacity to serve our community.
We would utilize $100,000 of the funds raised to acquire an additional farm and to create the infrastructure (site grading, more electrical capacity, etc.) needed to operate the new farm. The total budget for the new farm and related work would be approximately $200,000. GTF will apply for private foundation grants for the remaining $100,000 of required capital.
Approximately $60,000 will be used to hire a full-time farmer/director of operations to focus on the farming side of our work. We’re proud of our progress, but we’re poised to do even better. Hiring a farmer/director of operations to focus on our farming operations will allow us to operate more efficiently and to improve the quality and consistency of the fresh produce from our existing farm. Adding a farmer/director of operations also will give us the human capacity needed to operate a second farm.
Approximately $20,000 of the funds raised will be applied to equipment purchases for our produce processing operation. In May, we moved our non-farming operations to a warehouse that has been provided rent-free in the neighboring town of Bucksport. In addition to creating better working conditions for our volunteers, improving our efficiency and lowering our operating costs, the warehouse is closer to our clients, allowing them to pick up their produce instead of our making deliveries—saving GTF six-plus volunteer hours each week. We are in the process of equipping our warehouse space with refrigeration capacity, an ice machine, a stainless-steel sink, stainless-steel worktables, storage racks, and a washing machine and dryer which will help us clean the grow-strips we use in our growing process.
Approximately $20,000 will be used to support operations generally, including covering anticipated cost increases. We’re anticipating increased operating costs in Q3 of 2025 in two areas, liability insurance and electricity (one of our largest annual operating costs).
Since Sept 2024
2,600 Pounds
Fresh Produced Delivered
A Look Back at our Mission and a Timeline of our Progress:
We formed GTF in 2022 to pursue the following mission: GTF will grow fresh produce 365 days a year and distribute it free of charge to community-based organizations in Maine working to end food insecurity. Our produce will be grown sustainably in a containerized, hydroponic farm located in Hancock County. While providing food to communities in need is GTF’s primary mission, our broader, longer-term goals include integrating local food production into the health, education and opportunity ecosystem in under-resourced Maine communities. Please follow our story at www.goodtablefoundation.org as we grow and learn.
- Spring 2022 – Finished our strategic and operating plans.
- Fall 2022 – We ordered our containerized hydroponic farm from Freight Farms in Boston.
- Late Summer 2023 – Took delivery of the farm.
- Fall 2023 through Spring 2024 – Developed the power, water & technological infrastructure needed to operate the farm and purchased the additional equipment and supplies required to begin growing.
- Spring 2024 – Established a partnership with Ellsworth-based Loaves & Fishes, the largest food pantry in Hancock County.
- April-May 2024 – Began testing farm systems, and conducted several test grows.
- July 2024 – Began full-scale farming operations.
- September 2024 – Began full-scale produce deliveries to Loaves & Fishes.
- November 2024 – Began serving our second food pantry client, Caring Community Cupboard, in Old Town, Maine.
- December 2024 to Prestent – Week in and week out, through a cold, snowy winter, and continuing into this spring, we’ve maintained the same level of farming production and produce deliveries. All of that produce has gone to L&F and CCC, establishing GTF as the primary provider of leafy greens to both pantries.
Thank you in advance for considering a donation.
Warm regards,
Greg Nitzkowski
President
Our Volunteers
Thank you!
GTF is an all-volunteer organization. Our volunteers do all the farming, processing and packaging. Their hard work allows us to grow and distribute Soil-Less Green produce to our partner organizations free of charge.
Our volunteers include: Tina Anthony, Carolyn B, Jean di Sabatino, Sue Loomis, Barbara N, Ray Nualla, Scott Rowley, and Sheila C.
With deep gratitude, thank you to each of you for your devotion to our mission!
