OUR COMMUNITY OF SPONSORS: FEDCO SEEDS, LOJO FOUNDATION, RISING TIDE COOP, BELFAST COOP, AXIS NATURAL FOODS, ISLAND GROCERY, AND OVER SIXTY FRIENDS OF REAL FOOD!
We’ve been spending enough time around farmers the past year and a half that some of their ways are rubbing off on us. For instance, Community Supported Agriculture. What a fine idea. Farms survive, participants eat well, and everyone is assured that next year the farm will still be there. Farms are as much about people coming together as they are about food, or so we have come to believe. And in a similar vein, our film is as much about the community that surrounds great food as it is about the food itself. So, snagging a page out of the new farmers’ unspoken guide to making things happen, we are launching
COMMUNITY SUPPORTED FILMMAKING!
The idea here is that we are half-way to the finish. We have nearly completed the essential interviews for our documentary and we are beginning to find our way through the story. To date, we have invested and raised about $40,000. Everyone involved in the interviews has donated 100% of their time and expertise.
To wrap it up we are short about $20,000, depending on the final costs of the musical score and the manufacturer’s quote for the DVD. Ellen O’Connor and Bruce Swift (in absentia) hosted a women’s fundraiser a week ago, raising close to $3500. That was more than we had hoped and on top of that we took home an unforgettable experience: a room full of passionate, caring women who in short time collectively elevated the level of creativity and commitment.
From that first fundraiser two more were born: one in our home town of Damariscotta and one in Cambridge, MA. The local event was hosted by Dr. Tim Goltz who heard about our first fundraiser from his wife, Karen Kleinkopf, a force behind the state’s Farm to School program. By inviting his medical colleagues, Dr. Goltz is sending a welcome message about the level and nature of the medical establishment’s commitment to our personal and community well-being. This is a cause for celebration! The party was held on January 31st at the beautiful home of our hosts Mike Herz and Kate Josephs. The event brought together about thirty individuals who in an astonishing variety of ways are working to bring good food to everyone.
The final fundraiser will be in Cambridge, MA at the home of Joan FitzGerald on Thursday, May 14th, 2009. If you would like to know more about the Cambridge event, please email wendyhebb@roadrunner.com.
Additionally, with the support of our local food co-op, under the dazzling leadership of co-managers Scott Cooper and Maryanne Seredynski, we are mailing requests to the markets and co-ops that sell the fantastic produce the farmers bring in. We are asking them to join our spread-the-word mission by investing $100 in our documentary which will entitle them to receive 10 DVDs of the completed film. The DVDs, advertised in beautiful posters, will sell at a profit to the investor.
The idea behind “community supported filmmaking” was to come up with enough funds to finish our film. It was a clever idea, we thought, but the reality is that this project is, in fact, about how a common purpose furthers a sense of community. The people who commit their time, energy, and money to healthier families, schools, and towns have demonstrated that food matters. We are the beneficiaries of their dollars and equally significant, their encouragement, suggestions, and hard work.
If you can donate, any amount, we are greatly appreciative and you will be credited in the film. $1,000 or more and you are a PRODUCER! $5000 or more makes you an executive PRODUCER!!! Please join us!
For more information please call us, 207-563-2149 or email us at wendyhebb@roadrunner.com.
A MESSAGE FROM SCOTT COOPER AND MARYANNE SEREDYNSKI, co-general managers of Rising Tide Co-op: “Please consider joining us in support of this project. Rising Tide has invested $100 in the Community Supported Filmmaking Project. We were blown away by Michael and Wendy’s film OURTOWN as they documented Damariscotta’s successful grassroots effort to prevent Wal-Mart from developing an out of scale store in our community. We believe so much in this new film, we have also signed on as co-producers and invested our own money in this project.”