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The Fairbanks Golden Heart Rotary Club is planning to help the local CommUNITY Meals Program in purchasing local produce and food from the Southside Community Farmers Market. Community Meals are free weekly dinners offered at the Southside Community Farmers' Market all summer long: every Tuesday, June - September, 4-6:30PM. These healthy, locally sourced meals are lovingly created by professional chefs & are FREE to anyone who cares to share.
There is a years-long cooperative partnership between Calypso Farm & the Bread Line to provide Community Meals featuring seasonal foods from Market vendors. By bringing people together in an accessible space, Community Meals provides nutritious & simple meals that showcase local ingredients & are easy to recreate in a home kitchen. Last summer, volunteers served over 4,500 free Community Meals at the Southside Market!
In the recent federal cuts, a unique & important community program lost the funding that made it possible. Community Meals was funded by the USDA's successful Local Food Purchasing Agreement (LFPA) program. The LFPA paid local farmers to share their harvests with anti-hunger nonprofits. Through the Southside Market, the LFPA also reimbursed local farmers for produce distributed to food insecure residents. This investment in local economy supported Fairbanks farmers & provided critical food relief for vulnerable Alaskans. In March of 2025, the federal government pulled this funding without warning.
However, thanks to the hard work of local growers & the dedicated generosity of the Fairbanks's at large, Community Meals remains on the menu for the summer of 2026 & beyond.
Our club would like to help purchase the food for this year's meals. The Fairbanks Golden Heart Rotary Club will help serve these meals in August and September after our children's running club finishes for the season. The funds will be used by the end of September when the program ends for the season.
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