Kate is the Program Coordinator for VINES, the Volunteers Improving Neighborhood Environments, Inc. Based out of Binghamton, NY, Kate is responsible for coordinating the volunteer effort to make sure people are where they need to be and doing what needs to get done. Her work brings farm-fresh foods to areas of the city that were formerly food deserts.
Transcript
>> My name is Kate Miller-Corcoran, and I am the program coordinator for the Binghamton Farm Share Program through a small nonprofit called VINES, which stands for volunteers improving neighborhood environments. I am coordinating many different parts of the program. And so I'm working with farmers, local farmers, I'm working with volunteers, I'm working with members of the community. So, what goes into my day is communicating with all those people and making sure they are where they need to be when they need to be, and doing what they need to do. The main thing, the main projects that I work on is the Farm Share program. And that is working with five local farms, and those farms are, they run CSAs, which is community supported agriculture. And what we run is a modified CSA program. So, traditionally CSA programs, people pay at the beginning of the year. The farmers use those funds for better supplies and, you know, run their farm throughout the year. What our farmers have allowed us to do is let people pay bi-weekly and monthly. So that people that don't have the lump sum can go ahead and still afford to pay for it. We are in food deserts, some places that don't have access to grocery stores and don't have necessarily reliable transportation to get to farmers markets, we go right into those areas to give them access to this fresh and very nutritious food, which they otherwise some have access or affordability for.
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