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Hey, I'm John.
And I'm Becky.
And this is the We Are For Good podcast.
Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.
We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact uprising.
So welcome to the good community. We are nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
So let's get started. Hey, Becky, what's happening?
You know, my favorite stories and days on the podcast are the days we get to talk to like incredibly innovative missions. And I cannot go straight into intros today because I got to tell a story about how we came to connect with our guests. But we have a dear friend, he's been on the podcast before you know him is kind of the AI fundraising guru in our sector, Nathan Chapelle with Donor Search, we're having kind of a business conversation with him a couple months ago, and he does a hard stop in this meeting and says, I have something entirely non business related that I want to talk to you guys because I have just found a new passion, like awakened in my life in the pandemic. And I just want everybody to know about it. And he starts to tell us the story of Farmlink. And we're gonna unpack this story today with two of the it's incredible founders. But we've talked a lot about food insecurity on this podcast, we've talked about the unhoused, like the hungry, and we talk about, like the standard ways that we have done sort of food delivery, mission delivery, they're starting to really shift in the sector, and we are here for it. And if you are wanting a story that is heartwired, that is absolutely reimagining the way that we show up and empower not only the people who are providing the food, but the people who need that food. We're bringing in what were a couple of college students who had the frickin moxie, the risk and the chutzpah to like, go for it. And so it's my great joy today to introduce Aidan Reilly and Ben Collier, the cofounders of The Farmlink Project. And the mission of Farmlink is to connect surplus foods, from farms, to food banks all around the country. And guys, I just have to tell you, I had been watching your videos specifically really like the one where you got on Ellen's show. And let's create a casual mic drop for this Aidan is on Ellen show. But it's like this is something that I think people are so leaned into right now. And you guys looked around, you realized during the pandemic, that we're throwing away billions of pounds of produce and food. And yet we have this massive gap and hungry people. And you literally built a bridge to bring those two together. And so I love that you're fighting for a world where everyone has access to the food they need. And I love people that come in and say, This is not just an issue that we want to help bring a need to we're going to solve this problem. And so Aidan, Ben get into the we're for good house, we got to hear the story and where this idea came from. Welcome, guys.
Thanks for having us. And thank you for the intro.
Thank you, Becky. Thanks, Jon. Great to meet you both.
Oh my gosh, huge honor.
Yeah, we before we get into the story, there's going to be so many layers to it. Something like this doesn't just happen. It doesn't just get awakened one day when you wake up. We really believe in getting to know our guests. We want to know stories about where you grew up why you started caring about people in pouring into missions. You clearly you're looking around and you're looking for gaps and yeah, we just want to know your story and how it started out and led you to this moment. Ben, I'm gonna start with you.
Sure. Oh, me personally, we started the farming project in April of 2020. So two months after the pandemic began. And I think for a lot of people, there never really been a time where things felt more out of their control. For me, especially I was recovering from a reconstructive foot and ankle surgery. So I actually hadn't been able to walk for all of 2020 leading up until when we started Farmlink. And so for me, I think that FarmLink was this opera tunity to lean into PE, there is something we can be doing. And it might work, it might not, we're not really sure what's going to come of this, but we're going to try. And we're going to bring in people who want to be a part of it. And we're going to see where it goes. And thankfully, we've brought on the right people. And we started off in the right place where it's just been able to keep going and keep expanding. But for me, the start where it all began was just coming from a place of this, this feeling of not knowing what's going on. We want to change that.
What about you Aidan?
Well, I was actually doing when we started this project, I was actually doing documentary work. James and I have been friends since we were about 11 years old. And we always, you know, growing up, we always did all sorts of like projects together. And one of the things we did was we would we love making films together. And then we both became interested in like international affairs, what's going on around the world and you wanting to tell humanitarian stories and the idea of filming somebody's story, and then being able to circulate that and, you know, be able to make that create value, whether it's donations or attention for that cause was really meaningful to us. And James had been doing it a year longer than I had, but we joined forces, and we traveled to different countries and make these films which we would then try to submit to film festivals, and etc. So we're working on one about Nicaragua in 2020, that we, you know, we had gone in 2018, and lived there for a couple months and film the story about student, revolutionaries. And, of course, when the pandemic hit, all of that got put on pause, we had to quit everything and all of our plans. And I think James looked at me, and he said something like, you know, we're living through remarkable times. And like, we don't need to search very far for that humanitarian story now, like it's happening right at home, how do you want to remember this? And he was right, like, this is something that we are going to look back on, when we are 50-60-70 years old. And think about what do we do about it. And the first way that we saw that we could help was by feeding people by helping our local food bank, you know, which was running out of food and connecting him with more produce, basically.
I mean, okay, you guys are fascinating. You know, I think I think back to what I was doing, and the projects I was working on at your age, and I just think it's really fascinating. You're asking these bigger questions of how you can really get involved at a level that most of us would think we couldn't even make a dent. You know, it's easy to sit on the sidelines of something big, like food insecurity and these kind of bigger topics. But I love that y'all just leaned into the risk leaned into just the idea that you could do what you could do in it. I mean, that sounds like you're kind of awakened to that. But what like drove you to say, this is the injustice I want to lean into. Because obviously, there's tons of problems happening. Y'all are in the Los Angeles area, right, that you're kind of aware of lots of things happening, what made you say like food, is it for us?
Well, I think initially, at that time, if you guys think back to April 2020, it was like, every single day was another piece of you know, the the economy is falling worse, like our society is crumbling. The pandemic is raging on, it was like these massive issues that you felt like you couldn't do anything about there was a major feeling of kind of impotence, of just sitting home and facing that next piece of terrible news. So when it came to food, it was just a moment of reading these, this article about farmers who are having to dump all their produce. And then, you know, coincidentally, the week that we read that article, and we were talking about it, seeing or hearing from our local food bank, who we grew up volunteering at. And we stayed in touch with through some of our friends, parents who volunteered there, that they were running out of food. And so for the first time, it was like, Oh, this is a major issue. Food banks are running out of food. And what is this like mountains of potatoes in the back of farmers backyards like this might be even if we could just figure out how to get one truck to the food bank, a way that we can help.
I think I always like to give a little bit of credit to to my mom, which I was in Connecticut at the time with my twin brother Will. Meanwhile Aidan and James were in LA and we are both in Los Angeles now. But back in Connecticut, the exact same articles Aidan was reading, my mom just kept sending us and she's the angel who would be sewing people masks right at the start of the pandemic, just doing what she could. And she said she was the one sending these articles saying these huge lines at food banks and these major piles of food piled at farms because of this completely halted commercial food industry. Is there anything that can be done about it? And so I think to Aidan's point that the news really created the space for this to be a highlighted issue in ways that despite the fact that these are issues that have persisted for decades leading up to the pandemic, they were definitely highlighted at that moment.
I'm just so proud of you and even just to hear what your mom's doing to lean in Bend to me. I have to assume she's been doing that your entire life and modeling that you're in tire life and just this kind of mindset of show up and do what you can and the moment that you can do it. So I want you to kind of tell us how you guys all got connected. And tell us what it started like what it what did FarmLink start as? And where did you first make that jump and say, Okay, I think we're gonna take a run at this.
I would say Farmlink started as just the simplest concept of, okay, we're seeing all these articles, these new stories about farmers with too much food, let's just call farmers. I remember the first day, the first day I really spent like probably eight hours on Farmlink work was, I spent four hours in the morning researching just on Google a list of probably 200 farmers. And then four hours in the afternoon calling every single one of them one by one, most of them not answering or not wanting to listen or actively telling us what we were doing sounded like a scam. And so Aidan, how many do you think we actually tried to connect with before we got through to our first farm?
Yeah, hundreds. I mean, there was it was like to over 200 There was a point where we thought, Oh, this is this idea is wrong, like, stupid, stupid idea. Like people, like farmers are not throwing out food. Of course they're not. That'd be ridiculous. And it was amazing that once we got connected with that first one who was like, yeah, he had about he had a bunch of eggs, you'd like 1000s of eggs that he was going to basically throw out. It was amazing how that opened the door to more and more people. And like now we're at a point where our big barrier to entry is not that we don't have enough food to move, there's 20 billion pounds of food going to waste in the U.S. every year. It's that we need more people, more fundraising, more resources to help get that to people who need it. But uh, yeah, not not to stray too far off your question. I mean, the at the beginning, it was literally picking up the phone and calling farmers and saying, Are you throwing out food? If so, can we have it?
And I think it was also just piecemealing together, whatever logistics we could, we didn't have our transportation network, we didn't really know what we were doing in terms of talking about packaging or how that worked. And I remember in Dog Haus was, I think, a formative experience for us where we got our first two deliveries pretty quickly, Aiden spoke about those eggs of 10,800 eggs that Aidan and James picked up, which is not a model we've expanded upon. And then we
Like your car, you picked them up, like you just drove?
Like the Honda Accord is pulling up to the farm, and we're just loading them in the back?
Worse! We rented Uhauls.
Oh! Wow.
Because we weren't 25. So that's what we did to keep the delivery going. Well, we definitely don't do that anymore. But I did do another U haul delivery last week.
Of our probably 2000 deliveries at this point, that's two. Tt's not what Farmlink is.
I think something we were really good at was being like, Okay, if we do this, we got to do this. Now, this is a moment in time, where, like, the nation is kind of, you know, both suffering and cradling itself, where people really cared for one another and really wanting to help. So we had to act now we couldn't wait around to get like official 501c3, status. We couldn't wait around to get some truck company to like donate us trucks or whatever, we had to just do it, and then show people that it worked. Which, you know, the second that we got footage of us driving Uhauls with a with a big FarmLink banner taped around the side of it, and said, Look at this, we've delivered, you know, 15,000 eggs, and then it was 50,000 pounds of food, then people started to trust us and then embrace us. And that started this crazy boom of attention and help that we got from all over the U.S.
I mean, the power of the one yes. You know, like I just think the story like good on y'all for keep calling, you know, not many people would keep calling. I'm just curious, what wired you to just think that this was possible and to have such brilliance that this could work? Like I'm just so curious what happened in your growing up that you're like, No, this is gonna happen, this is possible?
I don't think that there's a track for something like this. I think it's the support and the opportunity to go through life feeling like something could be possible if if the right things connect. I went to Brown I majored in applied math. I didn't know what I was going to do. I was pretty sure I knew I didn't want to do this, but I didn't know what else to do. So I was going straight into tech banking that was going to be my job. So right now I would have been in New York, probably working 18 hours a day doing something very different. And I quit on Farmlink's first birthday. What would have been a job starting two months later when I graduated, and there was no hesitation it was just alright is Farmlink stable enough point where I can quit this objectively good job for something just feels so much more important. Yeah, I think it's just going through life being told yes. Like what what you believe can happen is possible if you work hard enough. Yeah,
I think come for me part of the reason I brought up the the film thing and the documentary thing, and the fact that we were working on that was because, you know, I, we definitely didn't know anything about agriculture or freight, I did not. It was the first time I drove a Uhaul, like, you know, but what we did know was we knew how to call people and like, ask them questions, call strangers and be comfortable, you know, saying, Do you need help? What's your issue, etc, and learning from them as like doing reporter work. And then we also knew how to, you know, take that intelligence and put it into a story that other people would pick up and be interested in. And those are two very transferable skills, that, you know, my dad always would tell me like, you need to have a path you got to it needs to make sense how you go from this thing to the next thing. And then as I was doing documentary work, and then I was majoring in poli sci, and then I was working in nonprofit food space. It was like, there's no path. It doesn't make sense. But like, retroactively looking back at it, I'm like, oh, but the skills were transferable. So I tell my little brother, I'm like, just do something. And it's amazing how you'll see those those skills might transfer into whatever you ultimately end up, you know, really investing your time in.
I just love Gen Z, so freakin much. I mean, you guys go for it, when it's when it's related to things that you care about, when you are really focused in on meaningful work, the tenacity, like your resilience, and I mean, I, I've done some cold calling and my fundraising days, and it's hard work. And I cannot imagine doing 200 phone calls until I got to 201, or whatever the number was. And I just have to tell you, I'm channeling my father in law, and my brother in law who run a farm down in southern Oklahoma, and I think about somebody they didn't know, calling them up, you know, that would they would probably be like in a combine just silencing, you know, because they don't understand. And the concept is so new and the farming community is, I mean, as many farmers as there are worldwide, it is a tight knit community. And you really just needed the trust, of one to create that cascade. And so I want to talk about how this avalanche of attention in media hit you. Because there was a moment it feels like you kind of went viral this story. And people just started flocking to the mission. And I gotta give you a compliment that I mean, the way you're thinking about even wrapping your brand around that Uhaul making it visible, like creating social content. It's that's a curiosity that I think somebody would say, What's going on here? Tell us about how this wave just started to crest with your story?
Yeah, no, it's fair to say we're dependent on the media attention and the attention from 1000s of people who became supporters from across the U.S. I mean, about two weeks in what we did is one of our team members, Jordan Hartzell, she found that the New York Times reporter who, who wrote that article on food waste that inspired us, actually, it was a Brown alum. And she reached out through some Brown network and was like, look at what we're doing. And turns out, he was writing a follow up article about that food waste article. And he included us in it. And that like legitimized us, you know, once you can do that, you can point and say, you know, we're Farmlink, as seen in The New York Times, which is, which makes a huge difference for people. But there was an explosion out around like May, June, July of 2020, where we started getting on hard news networks. It seemed like once we got picked up by one, which must have been like a local LA network first, then we started getting on CBS, NBC, whatever.
David Muir was huge.
David Muir, David Muir. James filmed me saying something, and then we sent it into the producer. And then four minutes later, it was on like national TV. And we were all sitting there watching it. And but we, our friend who had the mobile banking app, his phone was crashing, because all the donations were coming in. It was just like, hundreds a second. And that point was so surreal, like so beyond what any of us had ever experienced before. But it was also a moment where we had to be like, Okay, this is very, very real. You know, these are, these are people we've never met before giving us their money because they believe in our mission.
And I remember calling you probably two weeks in and we just moved the eggs and starting to figure out our potatoes with Dog Haus. And we said like, what are we doing? What is the goal? And I remember you saying we can feel good about ourselves when we hit a million pounds, and we hit a million pounds within a month and suddenly have like $600,000 in our bank account. We're like, alright, well, we need to change the scope of what this could be all over again. And so I think Becky you commented on how we just keep looking for the bigger and bigger goal. It feels like every three to six months, we're running a completely new organization with a bigger Northstar. And I think that the ability to continue expanding on that mindset is what has enabled this to not feel like it stagnating at any point. And that's been huge for us.
I mean, this is just amazing. I feel the snowball just building. I mean, I explained like, what is the next level look like? I mean, as you kind of unpack this, you've got runway with finances, you have all this kind of excitement happening in PR, what Where did y'all go with programming next?
That's when we started to get rid of some really important and supportive partnerships. So Uber Freight was huge in our first year with providing us transportation for free, for a long enough period of time that it allowed us to really focus on stabilizing other parts of our operations before we needed to really improve our transportation model. Then, at the end of 2020, Chipotle did this roundup campaign where if you ordered on the app, and your burrito costs $7.60, you could run up to $8, and donate that 40 cents to Farmlink. And so we started with these big partners that would support us financially, but also provide us some sense of legitimacy, and even context through which we could be getting introductions to some of the major growers and farmers in the space. And so I think for us, it was combining this capacity to tell our story and lean into this youth component that people really wanted to talk about, especially during the pandemic, and utilize that as alright, right now, our advantage early on is just we're a bunch of young people and people love that. Admittedly, we were not the most efficient food rescue organization at that time, we had so much to learn. But it afforded us the space to kind of go through this trial and error period where we're like, okay, what is the best place for farming to exist, and now where we are, is, we want to be the best last option for surplus food, this safety net that exists where there are productive relationships with farmers and food banks around the country. But there's so much food beyond what local food bank networks can receive. And what we strive to do is connect all of these disparate communities, disparate regional food banking networks, and see to it that there's this broader connectivity of what food is available out there. So for instance, in southern Arizona, there are billions of pounds of fresh fruit coming in through the winter months from Central and South America. And in the summer months, Salinas, California, northern California, is the Greens capital of the world. So in the summer months, the food banks in that region have more food than they can possibly accept. Whereas in southern Arizona, it's the flip side. And what we're trying to do is get a better sense of what this network looks like across the entire country. So that in the winter months, we can be supporting Salinas Valley with the food coming in from Southern Arizona, and vice versa, in the summer months. And that's really what we're focusing on, on the operational side, I think there are other pieces and facets of what we're doing to try and sustain those operations and change things on a policy perspective and bring continuous continuously this this media and conversation into the spotlights, because we don't succeed unless people's minds get changed on all of this. And so I think there's, there's this multifaceted approach where there's our operations, but then there are all these ways that we're trying to build off of the relationships that are coming from that.
I just, I want to commend you guys, and we were talking about this as a group before you guys got on. It is so interesting to us, that you come in start this nonprofit, with not really ever working in a nonprofit. So you don't see those walls, which is fantastic, by the way. And you really build this nonprofit, like a business, which I have to say is one of our trends that we've unpacked this year that nonprofits need to be pouring into is thinking like a business. And the way that you've structured it, you've created a culture where scaling is the norm, innovating and iterating is very much the norm and the fact that people Yeah, failing is probably it's failing forward and failing up. And you guys are young, and you have got so much drive and energy. I just think Farmlink has the potential to just be revolutionary as you keep listening to me, that is where I keep coming back to you're listening at all times. And that to me is such a driver. And that's what I want to say to our audience right now. When we're in that sort of old way of thinking, in fundraising, we're in the grind of tactics, and trying to do all the things and wear all the hats. It's not going to allow you this freedom to be listening all the time to scaling to innovating to thinking differently. And I mean, I'm sure there's some comfort in having the applied mathematics guy on your team, at least from a financial standpoint, but it's just great the gifts that you guys are bringing and I and I want you to talk about leveraging partnerships a little bit because you mentioned Chipotle, you've mentioned Uber. I mean I can imagine when you get a national presence, like you have, you know, or global presence, you have companies that may want to partner up, how are you selecting those? Which ones are the right moves? And yeah, how are you managing all of those pieces? At least at this duration?
I think our head of partnerships is really well positioned to answer that question.
What number one, like the best thing about Chipotle's Round Up, aside from, you know, the, the, the amount of donations that brings Farmlink in the amount of meals that ultimately ends up moving, is that it allows people to give a little and, and to make that small decision to give 40 cents or whatever to make a difference, you know, it lowers the barrier, it lowers the barrier of entry towards giving and towards actually thinking about, oh, maybe, you know, reading that little like one liner that we put under the Round Up campaign. And so it's amazing the impact we can have with the donations, but you know, we're reaching five or 6 million people who are clicking that, that little button every single time we do the Round Up, and that impact is unbelievable. And, you know, that's really what we're trying to achieve with partnerships, or at least a large aspect of it is creating that like cultural relevancy towards these issues, which have existed for a really, really long time. And were only highlighted and made, you know, relevant in society, because of the pandemic. And we're trying to keep them at that forefront of relevancy, because they're fixable, they're actually like, they're actually one of the few problems that you can literally make an impact and as an individual or as a company. So when we go work with a company, whether it is literally, you know, Chipotle, or a clothing brand, or a foundation, or supermarket, we're trying to get as many eyes as possible on the message, and make the barrier to entry towards giving back helping and thinking about these things lower and lower, because once you're in, we don't see many people deciding they don't care about this, it's more like, oh, you hop over that little fence. And then you have this whole world of recognizing, wait, they're throwing out how much and like I can do what to help? And so it's amazing, the future investment that we get, and our corporate partnerships played a very significant role in that.
You know what I love that. I mean, the partnerships guy over here is not talking about the money net like that's, that's just such a small component of what you're looking for. Because you recognize the message, the mindset shift is so much more of a powerful impact that can help actually eradicate this, then, you know, the rounding up, which probably was a significant amount of money.
It's so novel to me, and took continually disruptive to say, we don't care what you give, just give something and get in the door, because we're that confident that when we connect you with the story of this mission, you're gonna want to lean in more. And I think that's something to take away nonprofits is, we don't need to be trying to set $100 threshold for somebody to make their first gift or 50, 40 cents. If you have a great onboarding or warming strategy to get somebody integrated into your communications, your messaging, your community, whatever it is, it doesn't matter how they come in, if they gave a penny, let's get them warmed up because we want them to be rabid fans. Love that idea.
Yeah, we live in an interesting world, obviously, right now, where you're getting asked, you're getting asked for and pulled in like 57 different different directions every day. And people are like, people built up pretty good radars to, and self defense mechanisms to like bat off these kinds of solicitations. And people just want to engage with things that like are genuine and that they actually will care about and connect and connect with. And so that's what that's what we're trying to do. Like, yes, we want to make an ask, and we want to say, Hey, your dollar can feed, you know, 30 people, like every dollar, we can move 30 meals. So that's amazing. But to bring those people in, we have to tell a story, we have to engage with something that they're familiar with. And we love doing that.
Jon, you talked about mindset shift. And I think some of the best advice I've gotten since starting Farmlink is to create systemic change, you need to do three things, one, create technical improvements to the space. Two, create a shift in policy, advocacy, and adjust the rules of the environment that you're operating in. And then three is create a shift in social perspective about the problem that's being addressed. And so I think if you look at food banking, most people the problem they're thinking about is how can we get more food to food banks. But I think the reality is 35 million people in this country shouldn't have to go to food banks to feed themselves and their families. It's not a dignified choice based consistent way of accessing the food that you need and the food that you want. And so I think if we can succeed in creating a mindset shift that it's not about just getting more food to food banks, but actually striving for destigmatizing receiving free food and increasing the level of control that those who are currently going to food banks have over how they're feeding themselves. That is a far more holistic mission and problem space for us to be operating in.
How old are you guys?
I just turned 24. So I'm not even young anymore. Aidan's 23.
You have wisdom beyond your age.
I got three more weeks of being 23. So yeah.
Enjoy it. Yeah. This is this is what's so exciting for us. Because this podcast, we try to like push the sector. And we're pushing people that had been set and ways of doing things and the pandemic shook a lot of stuff up, you know what you're really happy about. But I just see you guys on the horizon of the forefront of what the landscape is going to look like as more and more people that are so heartwired and so wired to what really matters, and what you're really trying to do, that you don't care about the ego and the pontificating, and all this crap that has held back our industry and big philanthropy for so many years. What do you think's on the horizon is Gen Z takes the reins, starts their own nonprofits, what do you see in the world? I just want to tap your brains.
I'm like leaned in with my bucket of popcorn, I cannot wait to hear what you have to say.
The future of this of this generation and the ones following I think is the is the idea that working in something that gives back to other people and gives back to the planet and creates a more promising world, for those who are coming after us is actually cool. It is actually worth your time, I think we look at, you know what we're doing at Farmlink to be an amazing thing. But we all recognize inside, that the biggest impact we're gonna have is with what people who come through Farmlink are going to do after you know, we we have hundreds of amazing, smart, passionate, young people who, you know, their experience in Farmlink whether it is six months or two years, might change the way they think about working in the sustainability space and about feeding people about helping others that they might never meet. And I look at like, my younger brothers, friends who see me and they think they think, oh, that's, that's cool, you know, and they might never thought that they might have never thought that a nonprofit, or, you know, reducing food waste or something like that could be cool. And I just see that narrative changing rapidly around the space. And the more that we make this thing, both relatable, culturally relevant, the more people we bring in from other industries to join us, the more true that becomes. So that's a very engaging part of the, a part of the mission. And it's also just like indicative of a world that I'm looking forward to living in.
You're making nonprofit cool, again, thank you working for nonprofit, it's so true. And I got to think that there has has been a story or two or 100 of the impact of this work that has changed each of you. Could one of you share like a story, you've heard about how this mission has really impacted somebody who's really needed it?
I'll share one aspect that's really touched me has actually been you know, we set out to start this project not to like reinvent the wheel. Because the fact is like, what we're doing, it's not that it's never been done before, there have been people who've been doing this without without the spotlight for years, literally and one of those people, her name is Martha Barajas and, and she runs an organization called the United Hands of Compton here in Los Angeles. And she feeds what, like 5-10,000 people a week, literally from a street corner outside of her house. And she's been doing this for years, almost no resources, basically no attention, but a massive amount of need. And when we do when Martha needs something, we're going to send her a truck of food. And we're going to work on trying to make it such that this operation, she set up with her blood, sweat, and tears can continue to help people and rather than us coming in and trying to replace what Martha is doing, we just help and elevate those people, because those are like the true, you know, heroes are the people been doing this for like 15-20 years, on their own dime and with their own energy. And so talking to Martha and hearing how we can bring more attention to her project and how we can honestly share a stage with her is extremely touching and inspiring.
It's about the human connection. It's about the one to one, as much as we I mean, these problems are so massive in scale that we're fighting, and they seem so insurmountable. But if, again, if you can go back to the one you're going to stay centered and it's not just the one person it's Martha. We see her standing on the street court at least I can picture her in my in my mind's eye and just pouring into this and to just think that we want to mobilize a 1000 Martha's to be successful to live healthy lives to build, you know, more healthy communities. It's just fantastic. So Ben, what about you?
Aidan talked about the importance of our community to our success and the identity that Farmlink has been able to have as a result of it. And we've had, again, over 500, mostly college students, some high school, some recent grads, I think 2020 especially was the peak of just people finding a community remotely. And that had never existed before. I don't think Farmlink could have existed six months earlier. We were Zoom, Slack, Google Drive work place from the start. And despite that, it felt like you had friends in communities across the country that you've never met in person that you actually were friends with. And you would meet them. I just met someone, Alex Tsai, who has been an incredible part of Farmlink since the first month, for the first time last month, and was just like, Hey, Alex, like, nice to see you again. But it's actually my first time meeting her. But I think the story specifically, is at the end of every term, we try and do a season, a ceremony of sorts where we just get on Zoom, and people just share what is meaningful for them. And I specifically remember, one fundraising fellow, Louise, she had kept a journal of every single day, she just wrote one thing that she had a good like a good experience with a Farmlink. And it could have just been a conversation with a donor or something internal that made her smile, and she read it. And it was, it's so emotional. And everyone just started sharing how much Farmlink had been this community for them. And it it got very emotional. And one of our team members unmuted and he's truly just the light of the team and any Zoom he is on is just endlessly positive. And he shared and, to my surprise, I had no idea he shared that he lost a parent to COVID in April, and went to a really dark place and didn't know how he was going to get up and joined Farmlink in the early summer, and talked about how much it was a saving grace for him. Like I even talking about it now. I just started bawling at the time. And I think that when we started Farmlink, we didn't ever expect that it would create a community on a computer screen. But you actually had people who were like this, this was everything. This is the whole reason I'm up and not just in bed still. And I think that I'll remember that for the rest of my life.
I mean, what's striking me all in that, I mean, gosh, I feel that I feel like what a special thing that that is that you've created. But y'all have not lost building a really remarkable culture at the base of this. And that is something we talk about all the time because it feeds and fuels the work and attracts people to the mission and all of it and good on y'all for getting that right. And you have the rituals in place to celebrate and share and give space and community. So man, we have so much to learn from the youngest guys in the room. Thank you.
I just I am I am so hopeful right now. I just have a lot of hope for not just your mission, but the way that people can look at you as a case study. And it's not going to be a perfect case study, no nonprofit story ever is. But I just think you've baked in some values, like at the very core. And I have to tell you, just your interaction and the warmth than the kindness I'm sure some of it will be edited out as we're passing it back and forth. But it is so congenial, it is so familial. And it feels like you guys just really love each other, and you love your staff, and you love your work. Just for today, I just want to thank you for having the guts to go for this and to build this. And I hope anyone who's out there that is thinking about an idea. You're seeing a gap somewhere in your community, you're seeing a gap in your sector, partner up with a like minded friend, and let's do something about it. Let's make stuff better. So we got to end all of our conversations with a one good thing. And this could be a piece of advice or a life hack. And I wonder what you all would offer as a one good thing and Aidan I'm going to start with you?
Well, maybe I'll bring it back to what I was talking about in regards to not, you know, being stuck on the idea that you need a path. It's like, I'm someone who spent a lot of time both feeling like I like, resentful towards the idea that I needed to define who I was from a young age and really freed up by the idea that we could be encouraged to do projects and, you know, my, like really grateful that my parents they never forced me into a certain path. They just said you had to do something. And so I struggle with that a lot because it was so much of like, your identity is tied in with what you do. And the fact is it's not especially as you're growing up. So if you are someone who who feels like yourself, your value your you know, your self love, your purpose. Everything is so tied in with what you're doing in the moment. Just take some pressure off yourself, okay, like you're going, it's going to have transferable skills, it's going to, you know, point your compass that much closer towards what you truly like to do, and it'll likely end up okay. And if it doesn't end up, okay, then at least you gonna be better off than where you were in the past. And so, if you're a young person, if you're a teenager, you're gonna be in college, or, you know, like so many of my friends just out of college and not happy with what you're doing right now. Find your purpose, but you're only going to do that by by by committing to what you're doing in that moment. So and, and go easy on yourself. It's okay.
That's transferable advice for people even in their 40s. Like myself, so excellent. What about you, Ben?
Becky you talk about finding like minded individuals, I think if if you feel as though you have that, there's not really an idea that's not worth sharing. It doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to be fully built out. I think the first thing I floated to these guys was, hey, let's call all the school buses that have no work, no kids to be driving right now to see if they'll move our food. That was never going to work. But that was the first idea I shot and that's okay. And I think that if you are surrounded by like minded individuals who are willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, that, hey, maybe this isn't the exact idea we need, but maybe there's something here that's worth holding on to. I think that's that's all you need to really have a chance at success.
Well, you guys have completely well, this I mean, every piece of advice you've dropped is just pure gold. connect us to FarmLink how can people find you online? Where do y'all hang out?
How can they make a donation? How can they join your rabid fans? Give us all the details.
Totally. Okay, here it is. We got go to our website, Farmlinkproject.org. And there you can see things like, you know, donate money, donate your time, read more about us, and you can read about our story, our partners, you know, people involved. Our website is amazing. And I'm not taking credit for that. It's all it's all Margaret. It's all
Margaret's amazing. 18, 19 year olds, 20 year old, like, built, literally, sophomore in college, and she runs all of our design. She's fantastic.
And a volunteer.
It's so good.
Farmlinkproject.org. Go marvel at Margaret's work or follow us on Instagram at @Farmlinkproject. That's the same as Twitter and we have a TikTok now. And LinkedIn, we are pretty straightforward. We're on all social medias and our website at Farmlinkproject.org.
And can I just say, please pass us along? I'd say way more than half of our most meaningful partnerships have come from an introduction, a warm intro, we didn't get the right person but they knew who the right person was. So if you think you might know someone who is the right person for us, please, please share.
Guys, I just love you. We all love you. We love what you've done. I feel like I just got a master class in Gen Z like innovation and thinking differently. Just could not be rooting for you anymore. We're gonna be just watching you and rooting you on.
Thank you so much, everyone.
Such an honor. Thank you.
Thank you guys. This was awesome.
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