Core Values
The Oct. 14 Mimbres Valley Harvest Festival celebrates apples while building agri-awareness.
With a swell of apples in the local orchards and a tourism grant swelling its coffers, the Mimbres Valley Health Action League (MVHAL) is extending its grassroots reach with the first annual Mimbres Valley Harvest Festival on Saturday, Oct. 14. The all-day event will feature apple-cider pressing demonstrations, produce and craft vendors, historical presentations and live entertainment.
Leading up the festival, a weekly Farmers' Market has been taking place Tuesday evenings, 5-7 p.m., at La Tienda, a convenience-store lot in San Lorenzo, since early September. The Harvest Festival, at the San Lorenzo Elementary School's baseball field, will mark the culmination of the weekly market and celebrate the local growing season.
Festival committeewoman Kate Brown says "heritage farmers," long-time local growers, will share area agricultural history through the telling of their own experiences. In addition to the cider-pressing demonstrations, fresh pressed cider from local apples will be sold by the glass and by the gallon.
The harvest festival, supported in part by a Rural Economic Development Through Tourism (REDTT) grant, represents the natural fruition of MVHAL's community outreach. The group has met monthly since the fall of 2003, working "to further the health and well-being of valley citizens," according to its mission statement.
Currently, the organization coordinates and distributes food staples, secured through a government-surplus program, to some 150 low-income families in the Mimbres Valley (from Hwy. 61 at Hwy. 180 to the Cliff Dwellings) once a month. Rio Mimbres Baptist Church has been an integral part of the program's distribution process for the two years it has been up and running.
But following Hurricane Katrina, the MVHAL saw a dramatic decrease in the quality and quantity of the food it had to offer local families. Additionally, rising gas prices made the cost of traveling to Silver City to shop prohibitive for many valley residents. The MVHAL felt the need to address sustainability, looking for a way to encourage and support local food-source independence.
Brown says Margaret Hadderman, a Silver City resident and gardening enthusiast, called seed companies and got donations of their nearly out-of-date seeds. Mimbres Farms, a local business, donated seedlings, and gardening groups in Silver City donated seeds and bedding plants. Seeds and seedlings were delivered to residents, along with their monthly boxes of food staples, and were received with great enthusiasm, according to Brown.
If You Go: First Annual Mimbres Valley Harvest Festival, Saturday, Oct. 14, all day The Mimbres Valley Harvest Festival is seeking additional sponsors, event volunteers, craft vendors, musicians and storytellers, as well as farmers, gardeners and beef growers. Vendors, for both the weekly farmers' market and the Harvest Festival, must be artisans or growers of their own wares, not resellers. For more information or to sign up to participate, call Brenda Franks at 536-2842 |
"So many people have a little garden plot, so it seemed like a natural," Brown says. "We hope this support will help keep people gardening."
The MVHAL hopes the introduction of a weekly farmers' market and the harvest celebration will help bring the somewhat far-flung Mimbres Valley community together and encourage the development of a sustainable local food-source system. Brown points out that one local beef grower must now truck her cattle to Tucson for processing, her local processing options having dried up.
Festival committee chairwoman Brenda Franks adds her hopes that the steps the group is now taking will lead to increased food-chain awareness and foster independence and sustainability down the road.
"We hope this will be a first step toward having a more cohesive community," says Franks. "We are spread out, and something like this will hopefully bring people together on a regular basis.
"We want to revive the local vegetable and fruit market," she adds. "You used to see (farm stands) along the roads, with people selling their own produce right here. People are letting their fields go fallow and taking down their orchards. We hope this event will impact the way people think about their food, and will help them retain their independence by growing their own food."
—Donna Clayton Lawder
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