Project Goal
Raise 1.5 BTC or 16.14 ETH to start a community farm that will:
- Address food insecurity in community
- Provide jobs to community elders who need extra assistance but cannot obtain a job because of their age or their English abilities.
- Leverage traditional farming knowledge of elder farmers to share and pass on to youths and help
- Start a new youth program exploring environmental stewardship & sustainability
- Development a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) model that can be sustainable and continue to be source of funds for the community center’s programs
About Cambodian Cultural Center of NC (CCC of NC)
CCC of NC is run by a dedicated group of non-paid board members and volunteers who make monthly contributions to help fund its programs. As such the center has operated in survival mode through members’ passions and sacrifices and has never had a chance to thrive and grow. This project would provide a means forward to achieve self-sustaining funds through the community farm and free up the volunteers and board priority to focus on growing our programs instead of finding money to pay for rent or expenses such as loans against our children’s playground.
The Cambodian Cultural Center of NC is a 501(c)3 organization that works with the families of immigrant and refugee communities from Cambodia. Our main focus is the development of children’s programs that promote a sense of belonging and self-esteem through our cultural programs such as traditional arts in dances and performances, music, and sports.
We also provide community service and assistance to community members through food drives connected to our community garden or sourced from different non-profit partners. We encourage community members to take an active part in their local government’s development through an understanding of civic responsibilities by providing government-community exchanges.
Vision for Sustainability
In the first year, five “rotational” farmers or 5 elderly households will be elected to help cultivate the farm from April until September. This translates to an income of $1000/month per household to the elder farmers to assist in their housing rents or other necessities.
Two farm managers will be selected from the elderly community leaders who already live on-site and would help manage the operations of the farm.
The CSA Project manager will be responsible for developing the business model the first year and organizing training workshops to bring in expert consultants to help the community farmers improve their yield and farming practices that are suitable to North Carolina i.e understanding of soil tests and basic soil ecology.
The knowledge and contacts that the CSA Project Manager developed will be passed and taught to the onsite farming managers so that by the second year, the role of the CSA project manager would not be necessary, this alone will cut the project cost by $5,000 the second year.
Fixture tools such as tillers, chainsaws, and hoop houses will only need to be bought once. They provide a great multiplier effect to our existing garden capacity. This will reduce the project by another $10,837 in the second year.
$2,100 topsoil development the first year will not need to be repeated the following year, additionally, workshop and consultation costs of $2,000 will also be cut after the startup. These will save an additional $4,100 the second year.
By the second year, effectively the only operational costs will be in the 2 farm managers and 5 elderly farmers which would come out to be $30,000.
Then the question remains, can the CSA model be sustained on an annual operational cost of $30,000 a year? According to Urban Farmer Curtis Stone, it can and it seems he has successfully converted a quarter of an acre to $100k a year.
In the event that it cannot, we can revert back to a hybrid of our current model (non-paid volunteer works), cutting down the cost of the two onsite farming managers to $1,000 bringing our operational cost to $26,000.
As the second year (2023) comes to an end, we will have a better picture of where our community farm and CSA model stands, from its actual annual income and probable potential.
We then have enough data to see if a further ramp-up time is needed in terms of paying our elderly farmers. We will also have developed a pipeline of second-generation youth farmers who were taught by the elder farmers that are now ready to help out or take more leading community-service roles.
In the practical sense, since this blockchain crowdsource grant would only have enough to fund the first year, there is no set expectation our farmers should be paid a fixed income of $5,000/farmer the second year. We could dramatically reduce the incentive to farm to $2,000 thus putting our operational cost to $10,000 (5 farmers) + $1,000 (two managers) or a total of $11,000. Additional payments can be adjusted based on the actual income of the farm.
Today, our elder farmers are already volunteering for free, because this has always been a garden by the community for the community. The only difference now would be that an external grant can provide a means for us to turn the community garden into a community farm, that can have an external reach through the CSA and farm-to-market model. This is something that can introduce the funds that our center needs to sustain our current youth programs and at the same time, compensate for our elder’s know-how and time.
This project holds the key to helping pivot our community from survival mode to sustainability and growth.
If you believe in the power of a village and a community, please consider funding us through any cryptocurrency of your choice.
You can also find CCC of NC on Opensea at CambodianCulturalCenterOfNC where I will add more photos to our community profile to continue this grant crowdsourcing on the blockchain.
Additional forms of donation can be accepted via Paypal at https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/cccofnc or through Zelle at info.cccofnc@gmail.com
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