Why You Should Help Save This 1800s Barn in Central Pennsylvania
Yahoo Food is partnering with Barnraiser, a crowd-funding site that helps raise money for farmers and food entrepreneurs. Each week, we’ll feature a project which highlights the mission of Barnraiser: to put a billion dollars into the hands of food innovators as they reshape a healthy food world. This week, Barnraiser is featuring the project of Rooted Farmstead. Christie and Mark share their story about a historic barn they hope to restore, so it can serve as a agricultural hub for the surrounding community.
By Christie and Mark
Lovers of the outdoors, one another, and everything pumpkin, we are first-generation farmers on a mission to save our barn at Rooted Farmstead, a small farm in the making.
After careers in engineering and sales, we found ourselves questioning what “success” really means, and in February, 2015 we purchased our 14-acre farm in Central Pennsylvania with the goal of putting health, happiness, and hard work first.
Agriculture and promoting its value and place to this generation is at the heart of what we’re doing at Rooted Farmstead, but we quickly learned farming isn’t just labor intensive, it’s capital intensive. Start-up costs including equipment, infrastructure and land preparation quickly add up and are HUGE reason why there is such difficulty bringing new farmers into the industry. This is where the barn comes in.
With your support, we can save our 1800’s bank barn and make it an agricultural hub for the community — where locals can connect, share stories, and help each other get involved in good food.
Reaching our funding goal of $2,500 means we can restore a portion of the barn’s upper level, the most critical improvement needed for the barn’s survival. Above and beyond, additional revenue will help us purchase other things we need like tractors, irrigation systems, greenhouses and lower level renovations.
Join in our journey — whether by attending an event at the barn, having a conversation at your local farmer’s market, or keeping up with our story on social media. Help us save our barn, welcome the community and receive some rooted rewards!
Video and photos provided by Rooted Farmstead.
Barnraiser is the No. 1 crowd-funding community for good food and healthy living. At Barnraiser, you will meet the people changing how we eat and live, share their inspirational stories and fund good food, farming, edible education, social innovations and more projects that create a healthier world.
