 the same ideas that the previous speaker had and what we wanted to do is get small-scale farmers to get together and sell together and have better markets for that. So essentially it was the same thing you were doing. I think a little bit of a different fact. So our great idea is actually not that this is the people that were involved. It's myself in the middle, Martha Gaffney, she is from Ecuador and she does ethnic farming, she calls her. She's not organized, 35 organic, but she's got these organic practices. And Jennifer Grahobeck is certified naturally raised, naturally grown, and not certified organic. We all got together and wrote a group grant with them to apply for this great idea, who was to own, have farmers own their own distribution system and get the best price for the farm. So it's definitely a very farmer oriented, starting to small-scale in our farms, small-scale farms in our area. So weighing and joining counties, that's where we are. And our idea was to start this to a multi-farm CSA. So distribute a fixed amount of produce at $30 that CSA, where we would all contribute different parts to the basket. The idea being then that we don't have to grow 30 different things, we could have a really nice assorted basket, and we would just divide food, drinks, wash, when. That's our specific product. We wanted to set up contracts before growing, so that, okay, I give you this much money, you grow the beans for the CSA, and then after you deliver them all, we'll give you the rest of the money. And I go to our treatment inaccurate. So we really wanted to sell this in North East Ohio in the urban areas. We are in Worcester. We have Locarwood's farmers market. We have farmers market there. I have a feeling that we were maxed out with our customers. We kind of reached all the people we could spend. And that's being part of the Locarwood's markets from the funding of it. You know, you can only put so much stuff on the shelf and so much will be sold in a reasonable spot. That's one of the lessons that we needed. But on the other hand, we had this beautiful farmland that's very good farmers, and they had not enough market. So that was a way of increasing the funds, but to divert the produce up to the urban areas where it wasn't being reached. So that's what we set to do. It's not always what you end up doing, but we also partnered with Locarwood's because they have a place where we could get together. We have a cooler there, so we could store all the produce there before we started it out. Of course, I'm very involved in Locarwood, so I know I'm not working. And it just makes sense. We have the same shared goals, shared values. And it wasn't so much additional market potential from some of the Locarwood's producers who weren't able to sell in the market. We really have limited the market space because there's just not enough customers. So there's no point in having people bring stuff so I can get wasted. So maybe we can accept more producers for Locarwood's but diversions. And they do have an online system that is not, is being underutilized. It was when we just started it, it used a little bit, but it just kept, people were ordering online. People wanted to go to the store and buy them. So we thought if we went to Pima, that might be a really good system where they could order products from the local loose market and we would package it and bring in the CSA basket. That was kind of the idea, original idea. All we asked for, a manager. And I didn't want to say anything, but that was, I've been doing this for a long time. I have experience being part of good organizations and farmers are busy. They don't have time to manage other farmers. And so we really wanted to be a manager, a driver and a marketing person. So a lot of the funds we asked were, thank you for doing that one. We also asked for funds, for farmers to host keel days, for marketing materials maybe, computer printing, packaging materials, warehousing, food storage space. This is where local goods come in. So we could use the facility. What do we have to do? And I know there's going to be a forum on how to apply for a sale grant, but I'll just put the blog. We apply for the grant in November. They tell you if you get the money in about March and we got our funds in July. And there was a little bit of back and forth and budget revisions in that period in between. So really, we wanted to start last year. We got the funds in July. It was a little late when we started up to see a sale. And it's your interest. And I'm sure you will get this at the forum. This is the website. And if you want to get all the information about applying for grants, go to the website. I really appreciate all that you guys have done for farmers. And then after you get the grant, you're not done. You still have to be in contact communication with them, do progress reports. They don't give you all the money at once. And I understand why you don't make sense. So you need to do the progress reports pretty soon. And then when you're done with the grant, give you final reports. So what we did not do with the funds, one thing we realized is we're getting all this money and like, okay, who's responsible for paying the taxes on this money? And how are we going to divide this? So we decided to form a business and we hire a lawyer to apply for another grant or hire a corporate development center. And we got money to create a lawyer to incorporate it as a cooperative. That might be a property that you might consider. It's really not that hard to do and there's a lot of self-employed to do it. So what did we do? The first thing we did is put together a team. Since we're a cooperative, you need a board of directors. You need a manager, you need a producer, you need marketing person, a person, money person, instead of a place to do the work. When it first started, I was with all of those. I was the board of directors, the manager, the producer, everything. We have a lot of people on the board now. We have somebody that really likes to write newsletters. Somebody that knows how to use QuickBooks and the three producers that started with. And then another person that's on a college level who's a real food advocate. So when you look for a board, you really have to not just look for people, but look what they can do for you and how they can help you. I am the manager right now. So this is a job for me. I get paid to do this. This takes a lot of time. And so many things work. You kind of need a boss. You need a leader. You need somebody to be calling, getting the people, nagging them, making sure things get done. So that's what I do. I'm a producer. I grow a little bit, but mostly I'm aggregating from the other. This is some of the things that the managers kind of paperwork that you have to do when you're from a company and that what we do is we file different papers to cooperate. You have to open a bank account, get insurance, create budgets. And then when you're working with all these growers, you have to make up your rules. It's like, you know what everybody's going to agree upon? How are you going to work together? Membership agreements, creativeatures. And there's this Farm CSA Handbook and that was also done and said funds. And it's a really useful resource if you want to work with a lot of farmers and try to let them be part of. And that is on the website and kind of from the website. It's a very useful resource. It's not an idea. This was our brochure. We have a logo. A hire of a friend of mine could do the little logo. It's kind of a very general brochure. And then we have little schedules with different top of sites so that we don't have to keep changing our brochures. Now we got the funds in July and it was really hard to find customers at that point. So I said, well, if we cannot get people to buy CHS, how can we still start up starting this year? Sales and product. So I have a personal CSA as money for funds and I have customers that would give me money so that I would deliver food to people who go through the administration research. So I said, why don't I just extend that to this? You know, we can make it more formalized and get more people to give us money. And now we got about $700 for people last year to take their problems. And they got, people think that food matters just one can go. It's not true. They like fresh food. So we did bring a lot of fresh produce over there and it was really, really great. And we're very grateful for that. The farmers were grateful because I paid them good prices for this. People, it's kind of a win-win situation. And then the people that gave them money got their tax deductions. So that's something I want to continue doing. We did a small trial of CSA. We went to a lot of meetings. We went to Cleveland Clinic. We went to the OERDC. And we did get six customers, five customers from the OERDC. So we'll just do it. See what the kings are. So that's a local loose. And we had a newsletter. Health care is the one that writes this newsletter. One of the most important things about the newsletter is who is bringing what. And that's one of the things that we thought was important was to be able to tell people where your cabbage comes from here, your health care comes from money for fun. A lot of people are doing CSAs in North East Ohio. You know that. There's a lot of competition. A lot of people are doing what we're trying to do, but colleagues in the South CSAs are not CSAs. So basically, aggregators that we sell. And that's tremendous competition for us. So we have to define ourselves on our own. That's our thing. We're not reselling anybody. We're selling anybody. And they will know who's giving them what. So it's a traceability. That's going to be the answer. So that was one of the things that we did. So that's a good deal for our colleagues out there. And right to the center. That's the only one. What's that? It's your newsletter on the OERDC. You know, since we only have five customers, we were printing it out. If we ever get to where I want to go, 200 customers, if we might still print it out, the people we need to like to get it out of the bank and read it, even though it weighs a lot of paper. But I will post this on a website that we have. Having had a little bit of experience having with the people-to-people donations we decided to start getting a little bit of funds ahead of time. So in December, we did gift cards so that people could buy shares for people-to-people. And then we would give them a little Christmas card and we became donating somebody else's nation. We went to an alternative gift market at the Center for Sharing Church. And I was there for about two hours. We got over $1,000 for people-to-people. So we have already some money to give them for this. So that's a little bit of what we're going to be doing. And then we sent Christmas cards to our CSA customers and to our donors, trying to keep people happy. Keep it going. It's the biggest challenge is getting customers. So I'm going to go ahead and start a little bit. This was in the case of Jane Beeler. Maybe you wrote this article, maybe. Wilma Farmers. So what do we do next? It's been really nice to have those grant funds to pay the manager. But it's not going to pay for itself forever. So we are very concerned about how to make a business model sustainable. So we can't hire somebody to manage it. Without a leader and a boss and a manager, it's not going to happen. We need for it to be more producer. We need to increase our customer base. And that is the biggest challenge, is getting more customers in my very competitive. Getting known. And we need more press. The thing that delivers climate markets, people donations, and working with other agencies. So what do we need to be sustainable? We need to have really good producers that are consistent with our daily time that we can count up. We need satisfied customers. We need to educate consumers on how to use this keep them coming, keep them buying themselves up. Generate income. We talk to 20% commission on all CSA sales. We kind of work with numbers that should be able to cover our costs. We're not for profit. We just want to come out even. It seems a little high to some farmers. A local would sell with a 15% commission sales. But this is a sale done and over with. Business shortage is done. We're sold. So we don't buy inventory and they hope to sell it. We sell the inventory and then buy it from our producers. So I have signing service and I remain local and maintain the appropriate size. I think this could be a good way to get out of hand and become not profitable just for all of them. This is our website. It's not a very good website. It's WordPress. A very immature person did it. And I don't have the authority to add on to it. But I think it was important to have the presence. No matter, you know, even if it wasn't great, just have the website there. You know, people can find stuff. Download documents to become a producer. This is what if you're in an American island, a market in England, and a preliminary date sheet. So why do you think you can sell to us? So at least it's up there. People can download the documents. At some point, I think we do need to do some website, but I don't think it's thoroughly right now. Just get out there first. Our guidelines, these are just highlights. All the producers are required to be vendors. They must be in Ohio. They only can sell products that they grow themselves, or produce themselves. They have to have all the licenses. If they sell chickens, or whatever, they need the public licenses. They need to disclose the consequences. And if they're organic certified, it's great. But if they have other natural sustainable practices, you need to consider anybody that's doing the right thing. This is, I don't go through that. That's just a lot of stuff that is in a market agreement in our guidelines. We're very detailed of what they have to be moved, what's allowed, what's not allowed. Gap training is one of the things that we retire. I think more and more everybody's going to be asking for that. And then in our marketing agreement, there's a lot of stuff about bring yourself on time. You know, don't be late. Have to be right. Don't have any spillage. It's just sort of housekeeping details so that putting those shares together to keep this. In our grant, we originally asked for money to rent truck recuperative, then we took that out again. And now what we've found is that the entire store market imagine what they offered us, because they need to increase their producers in the market. We need a place to deliver. And what they're offering us is that each farmer can go to the market, sell their own stuff and deliver the shares. And that is just a really good situation for everybody because nobody wants to do that whole market the whole season. We want to do five or six markets. So we're sharing that market. We can take all products and deliver the shares and sell the shares and get known that way. It's not the best market, you know, in terms of sales performance, but it's a good enough market. And that cooperative will pay the mileage to the farmers to do this. And maybe a small fee, if the number of shares gets really big, we might pay a fee per share to deliver the delivery. And we're going to have to buy a vehicle or insurance. And it's really a really good way that might work for us. My client is going to have to sell their shares. I also really couldn't produce this with this kind of money. This was our mission statement. And I put this at the end because this is really where we want to go. And it's, you know, sustainable, profitable, cooperative distribution system that's on our own. Increase the sales opportunities for our farmers and educate our consumers on how to eat them. I mean, I put the wrong presentation. It's all wrong. This is not really what I want to say, but that is important. You be adaptive. It's what you set out to do. It's not necessarily what you're going to do. And be positive. And we're doing the right thing. So just keep adding in. It's the right thing to do. We are the leaders. We do need to save the world. And this is our way of doing it. So thank you.