Donate to meet challenge grants

This time of year, many of us are lucky enough to come together to enjoy and celebrate things that are meaningful and real to us: family and friends, a roof over our heads, valued traditions and rituals. As the days grow shorter and dreary, we reach out for what is bright and reassuring.

One of the things we seek is good and nourishing food. Most of us take great pleasure in ushering in December with the recipes that warm us and remind us of childhood and security.

Many of us are searching especially for solidity this year — it’s been a stressful one. We’ve watched with feelings of anxiety and an increasing lack of control as the stock market and the economy have fluctuated alarmingly, and we’ve begun to experience the consequences of some troubling economic and political failings.

In order to reconnect with a more sustainable and thoughtful vision of the future, it may be necessary to go back to considering some basics. For example, preserving farmland is crucial to our ability to support ourselves into the future in the most basic way imaginable: food.

In a time of insecurity, land is tangible —you can put your feet on it, and your hands in it. An investment in land is a solid one and an investment in good food, truly responsible — with edible returns.

During our 2008 annual campaign at the PCC Farmland Trust, we ask for your support now more than ever. Right now is the perfect time to donate.

A donation to land preservation is a donation that goes toward ensuring our very ability to thrive in the years to come. At the same time, as the need to save farmland grows more crucial by the moment — so too does your ability to make a fiscal impact.

Land prices are dropping, which gives your contribution more leverage. Additionally, we’re in the midst of the largest challenge grant in the Trust’s history. Donate now and your donation will be matched on a 1:1 basis by a very generous $100,000 grant from the Washington Women’s Foundation, as well as an additional $50,000 grant from a private donor.

Also consider that a gift to the PCC Farmland Trust is a powerful way to honor friends and family during the holiday season. Let us know if your donation is intended as a gift and we’ll gladly provide you with PCC Farmland Trust note cards to personalize and send.

Thank you for your investment in the future. Here’s to a healthy, happy and nourishing New Year!