Hi, Roger here. I'm at the third annual Bike the Barnes Ride. It's a 50 mile ride out into rural Wisconsin, Southwest of Madison, to visit some of the CSA farms.
My name is Kira Mulvey. I'm the director of the Madison Area CSA Coalition, MACSAC. Together with Underground Food Collective, we are your hosts today.
And thank you sincerely for being here. All here in support of Equal Access, the fresh, organic, locally grown vegetables. And we thank you for your support.
We're asking people to leave in waves. Our A30 crew is just about ready to go.
Bike the Barnes is an annual fundraising ride to raise critical funds for the Madison Area Community Supported Agriculture's Partner Shares Program.
It's a fun recreational ride. We tour the countryside, visit different farms, eat delicious gourmet food prepared by our local farms, and enjoy the day, especially when we have a beautiful day like the one we have today.
It's a little bit hilly. This year we went Southwest of Madison, so we're traveling through some of the hillier regions in the area. And we have a bunch of troopers today, 560 riders who went through the ups and downs, fueled by pasta and granola bars, and the promise of grilled pizza at the end.
But it's true, it gets a little hilly, but no pain, no gain.
April and I have been here for 10 years. This is our farm, Garden to Bee. I'm Scott Williams. Our market has been primarily Madison and Chicago restaurants, along with the Willy Street Co-op.
We're still members of the Dane County Farmers Market down in the square.
Everything that we do here is organic. We follow organic growing practices.
I don't know if I had the bike in the background, that would have made a good shot, but I don't have any bikes. They're all back here.
Thank you, Underground Food Collective. They're amazing.
I am a member of Underground Food Collective. Underground Food Collective is a collective of cooks and people who are interested in food, who works to promote quality food, promote organized events, and generally promote sustainability within the food system.
And thank you to all of our farms who provided food.
Well, I'll talk a little bit about the Partner Shares Program, which is what we're raising money for today.
The Partner Shares Program is a fund assistance and education program that brings community supported agriculture access to all of the families in our community.
So community supported agriculture is a way to join a farm, to be a part of a farm community, and get access, of course, to the delicious food, but also to the community and relationship with the person who's growing your food.
That can be challenging for people sometimes. It does require a significant financial contribution in order to be sure that farms are getting paid a fair wage for their produce and their labor.
And so in order to make sure that it's accessible to a lot of people across the spectrum, we have the Partner Shares Program, and it subsidizes the financial aspect of community supported agriculture shares in Maxac farms, as well as providing people with assistance and support to be able to use the produce,
appreciate their membership, and be full members of farms.
I forgot to ask how many people are out writing there.
Sure. Today we had 560 plus riders. Yeah. It was an awesome crowd. We were fueled by delicious food from Underground Food Collective and a giant staff of volunteers from Slow Food UW, Slow Food Beloit, and a bunch of wonderful citizens from our local community.
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