An educational, green way to fund-raise for your school or favorite organization, The Equal Exchange Fund-raising Program allows donors to buy high-quality, delicious products while supporting small-scale farmers and artisans who, in turn, support their communities and the environment. The fund-raiser features Equal Exchange’s organic and fairly traded coffee, tea, cocoa, and healthy snacks, and Ten Thousand Villages’ handmade and fairly traded crafts and gifts from small-scale artisans around the globe.
An added bonus? Kids learn about where their food comes from and how everyday actions as small as buying a candy bar can affect farmers and families around the world. Perfect for school fund-raisers that typically feature cheap products and low-quality candy, Equal Exchange even provides free, downloadable lesson plans and short videos for the classroom.
“Our Equal Exchange fund-raiser was much more than a fund-raiser; it was a vehicle that sparked conversations among our students, faculty, and parents about how our behaviors and practices in our own community impact communities across the globe. Besides, it’s easy to choose organic and fair trade when it tastes great!”
– Brimmer and May School
Rebellious Women T-shirt WINNERS are Faith, Deborah, and Fiona:
Faith perrino-DuBois said on 12/11/13 at 2:32 am:
“Adorable! I’m planning to grow the kind that’s juicy, red and doesn’t involve slave labor or chemicals! Heirlooms, preferably … (sm)”
Deborah McKissic said on 12/11/13at 6:59 am:
“My little tomato growers would agree! I garden with my grandkids…little Colt who is two and a half and Miss Lyra, who is 4 and a half..they love tomatoes! We grow them and eat them fresh from the garden…nothing but organic..what else would you feed them? Their favorites are one from my friend, Lisa, the seedwoman at Amishland Seeds….little white rabbit..a sweet, little, almost white, round tomato…and Miss Lyra’s favorite…”sweet pea”(Baker Creek heirloom seeds) her nickname…they grow in clusters like grapes…blueberry size..perfect for picking and eating from “Grammie’s” gardens and their own raised beds..oh, we love our tomatoes! Organic and non-GMO seed..OMG!! I wear a size medium teeshirt but a large is nice for sleeping in…love what these women are doing…the little white rabbit and sweet pea tomato pack a flavor for such small gems…no garden is complete without a few “to-MAH-toes!!”
Fiona said on 12/11/13 at 9:29 am:
“I love making tomato sauce from home grown tomatoes. It’s great on homemade ravioli. Last year our Romas did really well, and I’m planning to grow even more this year. I wear a size large (probably from eating all that ravioli!).”
Congrats!!! Watch your inbox for an email from the farm.
And our original text for the contest on 12/11/13 was:
The delicate peels of Satsuma oranges make this marmalade a snap to prep. It is easy to remove the peel and not the pith with just a vegetable peeler, and after the peel is removed, the pith peels right off! It is typical for orange marmalade recipes to have more sugar than fruit by weight. This recipe is a reduced-sugar version, and uses my ChillOver Powder to set up, rather than relying on the natural pectin in the oranges.
Are you a fan of American folk art?
If so, you may know the artist whose passing we lament on December 13.
Need a hint? Take a look:
Image courtesy of Wikipaintings
The sweetly simplistic style of Anna Mary Robertson Moses, better known to all as Grandma Moses, is nearly unmistakable. And her subject matter is as dear to this farmgirl’s heart as that of Laura Ingalls Wilder.
A picture speaks a thousand words, as the saying goes, and Grandma Moses proved it to be true. With the clarity of her almost childlike imagery, she preserved the rural arts of maple sugaring, soap-making, haying, quilting, and Apple Butter Making (below), to name a few.
Image courtesy of Wikipaintings
She once said, “I’ll get an inspiration and start painting; then I’ll forget everything, everything except how things used to be and how to paint it so people will know how we used to live.”
Sugaring Off by Grandma Moses courtesy of Wikipaintings
“In person, Grandma Moses charmed wherever she went,” read her obituary in the New York Times. “A tiny, lively woman with mischievous gray eyes and a quick wit, she could be sharp-tongued with a sycophant and stern with an errant grandchild. Cheerful, as a cricket, even in her last years, she continued to be keenly observant of all that went on around her. Until her last birthday, September 7, she rarely failed to do a little painting every day.”
Talk about an inspiration!
Perhaps what fascinates me most about the iconic Grandma Moses, though, is the fact that she didn’t begin painting until she was 76 years old!
Photo of Grandma Moses, taken in 1953, courtesy of Wikimedia
She took up a paint brush, she said, because she could no longer wield her embroidery needle as a result of arthritis. “She had been too busy all her life to bear the thought of being idle,” reported the Times.
Grandma Moses died on this day in 1961 at the ripe ol’ age of 101.
To learn more about her and enjoy a bountiful sampling of her paintings, I recommend the out-of-print book Grandma Moses by Otto Kallir, the renowned art dealer who helped popularize Moses’ work. It even includes a summary of her life, handwritten in her own words.
Buy props used in MaryJane’s books and magazine!
5% of profits will benefit www.firstbook.org, a non-profit that provides new books to children from low-income families throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Here’s how:
MaryJane will post a photo and a description of a prop and its cost along with a few details as to its condition here: https://shop.maryjanesfarm.org/MaryJanesCurations. It’s a playful way to be the new owner of a little bit of farm herstory.
