Catalyst Collaborative Farm - End of Season Community Building Fundraiser
Catalyst Collaborative Farm is a land-based, income-producing project that centers Queer & BIPOC land stewards, entrepreneurs, and allies to grow food and make medicine with/for the community we serve.
Leader
Monti Lawson
Location
636 Rudd Pond Rd Millerton, NY 12546
About the project
The Catalyst Collaborative Farm is nearing the end of our first growing season and want to finish the season strong.
Our Founder, Monti Lawson, is a Black and Gay beginning farmer and has been a community gardener and urban farmer in NYC for over a decade. He graduated from Farm School NYC in 2022 and moved in April, moved to the Mid-Hudson Valley. We created the Catalyst Collaborative Farm on 2.8 acres of land at WILDSEED Community Farm & Healing Village in Millerton, NY.
In seven short months, we have already hosted over 100 people for camping weekends, Community Work Days, and our Fall Festival Weekend on October 7th and 8th. So many of our community members from NYC have been able to experience the magical land with us.
We are seeking support to fund the work needed to host our final Work Days and community programming for the year.
With your help, we can fund these projects and ensure that the QTBIPOC land stewards in our community can fully participate at no cost to them.
The Steps
With your support, we will be able to pay for the labor, materials, and supplies to host our final Community Work Days of 2023 season:
- Spread 30 Yards of compost in our new garden beds
- Create pathways with 50 Yards of woodchips
- Plant out 500 perennial herbs
- Host 30+ people during our Community Work Days
Why we‘re doing it
We are strengthening the network of low-income community members in NYC whom we serve and the beginner farmer network we are a part of. To us, the holding of both of these communities simultaneously is key to real long-standing food security. We strive to serve our communities by offering free/low-cost opportunities to build relationships with the land through community workdays, healing workshops, and co-created plant medicine.
We operate as a group of Collaborators exploring solidarity economics to achieve our liberation by building Community Wealth.
Community Wealth is the abundance created when we build a purpose-driven and sustainable enterprise that lives in right-relationship with ourselves, each other, the Earth and future generations.