Twin Villages Foodbank Farm is starting its sixth season by hiring additional staff members to help grow food for Lincoln County pantries. Amanda LaBelle and Claudie Babineaux bring many years of experience in vegetable farming at the community scale.

LaBelle has a number of years of farming experience growing vegetables for CSA and restaurant markets, and most recently working with medicinal herbs. She has worked as a community health worker with Maine's migrant and seasonal farmworkers. LaBelle is also a master food preserver and enjoys, as she says, “trying to catch summer's sunshine and its bounty in jars.”

Babineaux found a career in sustainable agriculture after spending several years as a park ranger and as a firefighter/EMT. She has spent the last ten years managing farms throughout the southeast ranging from small-scale market gardens to a large-scale CSA farm. She also spent several years managing the student farm at the University of Florida, which provided food for the on-campus food pantry as well as other local food pantries.

Twin Villages Foodbank Farm’s mission is to grow and distribute healthy food for those who need it most in Lincoln County. The farm serves food pantries in Boothbay, Damariscotta/Newcastle, Jefferson, New Harbor, Waldoboro, Whitefield, and Wiscasset, and youth food programs including FARMS at the Y, the YMCA daycare, Newcastle Head Start, and weekend backpack programs at the Boothbay Regional Schools, Bristol Consolidated School, and Wiscasset Elementary School.

With strong support from the local community, TVFF has set its 2021 production and distribution goals at 85,000 pounds of food. To learn more about the farm or to make a secure online donation, visit twinvillagesfarm.org.

The Farm operates in close partnership with Coastal Rivers Conservation Trust. In addition to space for the food storage hub at Coastal Rivers’ Round Top Farm, the land trust donates use of three acres of prime farmland at Salt Bay Farm and provides administrative, fundraising and communications support.

For more information, email info@coastalrivers.org or visit www.coastalrivers.org