2025: A Year of Growth, Community, and Real Food

Dear members,

What a wonderful adventure we're having together! As we turn the page on 2025, our 3rd full year of operation, we're filled with gratitude for the success of our association and the real impact it's having on our local food system. Every order you place, every conversation you have with other members, every event you attend—you are building something remarkable. Here's how we grew together this past year.

Looking Back: 2025 By the Numbers

The numbers tell a story, and it's a good one:

Our Growing Community

We welcomed over 100 new members to the Little Farm family this year. Weekly orders jumped by 20+ per week, with an increase of just over 1,000 total additional orders placed throughout the year. We packed 3367 individual orders in 2025, delivering amazing local food to our member families, grown or made by farmers and food crafters right here in SWMO! Each one of those orders represents a family choosing real food, choosing local, choosing community.

More Producers, More Choices

We added 14 new vendors to our network, bringing you an even wider selection of amazing local goods. Together, these incredible producers offered 944 unique items—from grass-fed beef to farm-fresh eggs, artisan bread to raw honey. The variety in our local food system is stunning, and you get to enjoy all of it.

Economic Impact

Overall food sales increased by $45,000 this year. Thanks to this community, that’s about $165,000 of food moved and 80% of that money has gone directly back to people who produced it. Considering that the USDA reports that farmers in the conventional food system only see about 14% of food dollars, this is a big win for our mission to support our local economy by supporting the families who grow and raise our food and helping build prosperity right here in our home towns.

Coming Together

We had so much fun at our events in 2025, too! LFA collaborated with Angela Jenkins (Health Is Local) on the ”Navigating Nutrition Through the Seasons” luncheon, where she taught us a lot about how food impacts cellular health, and we enjoyed a fabulous meal together, made fresh by Angela and Rene. 

Despite a downpour at the Summer Picnic (because apparently even Mother Nature wanted to see if we were committed!). We had a blast and an amazing turnout. It was a hoot to watch everyone, young and old, embrace the conditions, kick off their shoes, and have fun! Rene and Angela Jenkins put together another great meal with wood-fired pizzas and the Soldini family gave us a great venue for lots of kid-oriented activities. Thank you to Jessi and Amber and the Goolsby family for getting your hands in the mix and helping make this a successful day!

The End of Year Shindig was beautiful and well-attended—even though several families were battling the flu at the last minute.  Amanda of Figgi’s Gift Bar and Carlo of Empire Coffee did a wonderful job creating an elegant space for us to enjoy Chef Roland’s French cuisine and to celebrate our producers for feeding us so well in 2025. Your dedication to showing up for each other, rain or shine, sick or healthy, means everything.

Giving Back

Through your generosity and participation, LFA gifted $2,450 dollars of food, serving 17 families both inside and outside our association during the holiday season this year. It was a first for us to try, and we were overcome by this community’s response. There are no words to express how beautiful it was to see this work so well. It is a great example of how well neighbors can come together to help neighbors. We aim to find other ways we can support one another and come together in the spirit of service and generosity.

What We Learned in 2025

Every year brings lessons, and 2025 was no exception. Some were practical, some were profound, and one involved walnut trees.

Systems That Serve You

We found a new platform that handles memberships and shopping in one place—a game changer for making the experience smoother and easier for shoppers. Big buttons, simple navigation, and fewer clicks between you and great food. The result? That surge in membership you see above. The new platform also better supports our pillar of transparency with producer profiles being easily visible in the description of each item and being able to add the link for production protocols in each one as well. 

The Walnut Tree Incident

We learned not to park near the walnut trees in fall. Two windshield replacements later, lesson learned. (You're welcome for taking one—or two—for the team.) You’d think this would be a no-brainer, but we really just didn’t think about it! Proof that complacency can hurt, lol. 

Data & Knowledge Management

Keeping up with vendor supply, customer preferences, and all the research that goes into running this network generates a whole lot of information. Fortunately, Ryan is exceptional at these things and labored continuously to improve these systems for us and for producers. This winter, he built us a system that keeps everything organized and accessible and we are already seeing the benefits (and relief) of this upgrade. It's really the stuff people don’t see that makes the beautiful things possible. 

The Power of Connection

Most importantly, we learned that we really love getting people together and watching this community grow. Meeting members, hearing your gratitude for the great food, seeing kids run around at picnics and everyone chatting and making connections —this is what makes all the hard work totally worth it. 

Looking Forward: Our Mission, Renewed

As we step into 2026, we want to reaffirm why we're doing this work and what we stand for.

Little Farm Association exists to build a bridge that connects people with their local food community while enhancing regional prosperity through local food purchases.

• We believe you deserve 100% transparency about your food so you can make the best decisions for your families.

• We believe that individual freedom and choice are central to eating well and keeping people healthy.

• We believe that economic prosperity is built locally and should serve the communities directly.

• We believe that it's time to build connection and community—and we're doing it through one of the most vital requirements for life: food.

  
  

Our Intentions for 2026

Here's what we're building together this year:

Expanding the Network

We'll continue growing so we can feed and support as many families as possible through amazing, real, healthy food. The more members we have, the more producers we can support, and the stronger our local food system becomes. If you have something you would really like to see in the store, let us know! We will be happy to go hunting for a local business that does that thing!

Deepening Community

We want to find even more ways to bring people together—to connect, to have fun, to learn. Expect more events, more opportunities to meet the farmers who grow your food, and more chances to build friendships around shared meals.

Regional Food System Involvement

We're increasing our collaboration with other organizations to make local food a real force, not just a novel trend. We're embarking on an exciting partnership with Springfield Community Gardens in Ava to build greater access to quality food for vulnerable populations while adding more support for our region's producers. 

Farm Tour Film Project

We're adding to our film project with more farm tour videos this year. If you have skills in video editing and a burning desire to contribute to this effort, volunteers would be very welcome! Reach out—we'd love to work with you. There are 3 or 4 up on our private YouTube channel now, so if you have not enjoyed those, you can access them though the link on the Bulletin Board from your account menu. 

Save These Dates

Mark your calendars for these important gatherings:

• Annual Producers Meeting – TBD in February (LFA producers only)

• Summer Members Picnic – June 21st (fingers crossed for sunshine!)

• Annual End of Year Shindig – November 7th

  
  

Stay tuned for updates on other events: farm walks, canning class, a Making Whole Foods Easy workshop, and coffee hour gatherings. We're always cooking up new ways to bring this community together and we welcome your input! If you have a great idea for a gathering, let us know!

Thank You

To every member, every producer, every volunteer, and every person who has shown up for this vision of a thriving local food system—thank you. You are the reason this works. You are the reason families are eating better food, farmers are building sustainable businesses, and our community is growing stronger. We are excited about the continued growth of LFA. Here's to another year of real food, real connections, and real impact.

With gratitude,

Rene & Ryan