Heine Brothers’ Coffee is the founding sponsor of 15Thousand Farmers, a community organization that inspires and empowers 15Thousand new backyard/front yard farmers in Louisville and Southern Indiana. By teaching Beginning Food Growing workshops and making easy-to-follow growing instructions available, this grassroots group hopes to provide the fertile ground out of which our city can inspire folks like you and me to grow their own food, and help bring our families, neighborhoods, and this community closer together. The group also holds a 15th Day Celebration on the 15th of each month where people come together to share local food, Heine Brothers’ coffee and education on different aspects of backyard food growing. This free event gives Louisvillians from across the community a chance to come together and meet a friend or make one and to share our food growing successes and challenges!
Gary Heine and Mike Mays, co-owners of Heine Brothers’ Coffee, believe this organization is a natural outgrowth of the sustainable, community building path the company has travelled since opening our first store in October 1994.
What will 15Thousand Farmers mean to us here in Louisville?
- We’ll learn we can plant a seed and feed ourselves!
- As we begin to grow our own food, we can grow the community in our neighborhoods. We can meet our neighbors around a common interest – sharing growing secrets, trading special vegetables or herbs and seeds!
- We take back our power of choice! As we grow our own food, we begin to realize we have a choice to take charge of things we hold dear – abundant, inexpensive, delicious, healthy food, sharing it with friends, saving money we usually spend at the grocery, reconnecting with nature just outside our back door, making new friends in our neighborhood with a common interest, and helping transform this community and the world.
- As we grow our food locally, we reduce our dependence on foreign oil as we buy less stuff that has been shipped in by truck, train or plane from distant states or countries.
- Growing plants sequesters carbon better than any other current technology. So as we plant and grow our food, we powerfully affect climate change.
The heart of 15Thousand Farmers is that you can grow your own food for any or all of these reasons or make up one of your own. The key is to take a small step to get started, realize food growing is an experiment with you, the sun, soil, weather and Mother Nature and have fun!! For more information, see our website or join our Facebook group.
