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Personal Story
Nancy: I grew-up on a small farm in northwest Iowa. I attended The University of South Dakota and earned my teaching degree. I taught high school English for 7 years then worked in the education department for an Arts and Science museum in Sioux Falls.
Jeff: I was born in Oregon and lived all over the place before settling in Madison, SD in Jr. High. I graduated from The University of South Dakota with a degree in Business. I owned a small picture frame manufacturing company for 17 years.
The monotony of the daily routine was proving to be a little too much for us, so we traded in routine for life aboard a sail boat. Floating around in Mexico is great for your tan, but not for building a community or earning an income. After a year, we were back in South Dakota living in a farm house built in 1893. We are entering our 5th growing season. As we look to the future of our farm, we know it comes with being diverse, flexible and innovative
Business Description
The Good Earth is a Consumer Supported Agriculture farm located in Eastern South Dakota. We have delivered fresh produce to about 350 families in and around Sioux Falls for the past four years. After taking a break from the 9-5 job, we knew there was no going back. The outdoors were calling us! So was being a part of a larger community. Over the past four years we have expanded the business to include heritage turkeys, honey and this year eggs--all of which we produce on the farm.
South Dakota is last in the nation for fruit and vegetable consumption (even though we are an agricultural state)-so one of our greatest challenges is educating people on how to prepare fresh vegetables. Adding a summer kitchen will allow us the space to provide that type of education along with generating an additional revenue stream.
What is the purpose of this loan?
This loan will allow us to build or retro fit an existing building on the farm into a summer kitchen. The summer kitchen gives us to opportunity to create additional revenue by having a venue to rent out and provides us the equipment and space to turn our vegetables into value added products.
