March 27, 2023 | By Sophia Goulette
Copper Country Senior Meals Partners with Local Farm to Provide Fresh Food
Ghost House Farm is a locally owned farm that has partnered with Copper Country Senior Meals in order to provide fresh food for seniors. Though originally started unexpectedly, this partnership has blossomed into a cherished relationship.
Drew Cramer and Allison Mills, owners of Ghost House Farm, believe that healthy and accessible food begins with healthy soil. They practice sustainable farming techniques such as crop rotation, crop covering and raising livestock.
These practices help ensure that the nutrients necessary to grow food are always present in the soil they grow in. In order to keep food, resources and money in the local economy, Ghost House Farm provides subscription services for eggs, fresh produce, flowers and local meats through a partnership with Frozen Farms.
A balanced diet is a key part of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. However, it is much more difficult to sustain healthy eating when the ingredients are not accessible. Ghost House Farm is focused on providing food accessibility to citizens of the Copper Country.
Last year, Ghost House Farm partnered with Copper Country Senior Meals (CCSM) in an effort to reduce food waste while simultaneously offering the seniors fresh produce. Ghost House Farm ended up with 100 extra winter squashes, and that led to a partnership that offered seniors financially and environmentally sustainable produce.
“I thought it was a little thing when I donated the squash, but there were seniors in tears because they hadn’t had squash in decades,” said Cramer.
As the partnership continued, Ghost House Farm supplied fresh salad mix, which was greatly appreciated by the seniors. Kathleen Harter, executive director of CCSM, explained that this is not a food that seniors will typically buy for themselves.
“If you think about everything that goes into making salad… this is something they don’t buy because it often goes bad before they can eat it all,” said Harter. “If you are one person eating by yourself, which many of our seniors are, it’s going to go bad.”
Offering one portion of salad as part of a daily meal has allowed many seniors to start eating salad again. Not only is it good to have fresh food, but the salad also offers more color and new tastes to the menu. For many seniors, the salad ingredients are reminiscent of the gardens and farms that were once a part of their daily lives.
Though Cramer and Mills were just looking to help an old friend and former boss, Harter, they helped kick-start programming that they hope will help finance more fresh, local produce.
In March, Ghost House Farm launched a Copper Country Senior Meals donation subscription, in which people can choose to sign up and donate weekly towards providing seniors with fresh produce. Though this feature is brand new to their online store, their goal is to reach $50 per week this summer. Within a week they were up to $6.
“That would enable us to donate five pounds of salad mix and a couple of pounds of other seasonal produce to Copper Country Senior Meals every week,” said Cramer. “I’m hopeful we’ll get there.”
CCSM and Ghost House Farm plan to grow their partnership to address community needs.
“I am so grateful and appreciative of their community focus and wanting to help serve seniors with fresh foods as much as possible,” said Harter.
If you would like to support Ghost House Farm and Copper Country Senior Meals, consider subscribing to the donation program. The default donation is $1 per week, but if you wish, you can order multiple $1 subscriptions to donate more than $1 per week.
You can sign up today by visiting Ghost House Farm’s online store. To keep up with us at Copper Country Senior Meals, sign up for our monthly email newsletter.