Volunteers pack apples recently at the Fortville Area Resource Mission, which is also open Thursday evenings for a free warm meal.
The Fortville Area Resource Mission is in the early stages of planning for a new building as the nonprofit expands.
Founded just before the beginning of the pandemic, FARM has seen exponential growth over the past several years, starting as just an evening pantry, then adding a day pantry, eventually adding mental health and grief support groups as well as bible studies over time. The organization currently runs out of Fortville Christian Church, but, according to FARM Executive Director Lisa Reynolds, the nonprofit has outgrown its space within the church.
“Fortville is a fast-growing area and there’s really no community center there,” Reynolds said. “We also found out that a lot of nonprofits would come and serve our community if they had a place to do it.”
As the need in the community has grown, so has the organization, jumping from 25 volunteers a few years ago to over 139 monthly volunteers who attended FARM’s volunteer appreciation event in June.
The new facility would serve as a central space for nonprofits in the area, as currently, most of the county’s nonprofits are centralized in Greenfield, township trustee Florence May says. With the rapid growth of the communities in Vernon Township, the area now needs its own services in order to keep up. According to May, working through satellite operations with Greenfield-based nonprofits has been a logistical struggle which would be helped by having more nonprofits like farm based out of Vernon Township and having a facility for them.
The building is still in the planning phases, with some early fundraising being done as well, including t-shirt sales last month and a 5k run and scavenger hunt planned for next May, which was approved at Fortville’s Aug. 5 town council meeting.
FARM initially approached Vernon Township, which helps fund FARM and provides the organization’s pantry with fresh food through a community garden, about the building over a year ago according to May. The township helped FARM identify problems that the new facility would need to be equipped to handle, including addiction, mental health and job insecurity in addition to FARM’s current services. A major problem, May notes, is underemployment, as with housing costs and median income exploding in the township, many people’s jobs don’t cover the bills anymore.
“They may even be working full time, but it is not enough money to provide for their families,” May said. “How do you work through getting into training programs so that people can move into jobs where they’re going to be making enough money?”
May went on to say that these problems often compound on one another as time goes on. The township provides help to people in crisis, and has turned to FARM as a partner in the past several years after seeing “how professionally they operated, seeing their commitment to going in and working with people, not just in terms of giving food, but working with them on their journey back to self-sufficiency” according to May, especially given the lack of a pantry within Vernon township to begin with.
Reynolds says that FARM is currently meeting with builders and designers to make concrete plans for the building itself. Currently, the building is planned to be “a multipurpose center that has a community room plus meeting rooms for counseling or individuals to meet one on one,” Reynolds said. FARM would continue its current operations in the new building, including both pantries and two community meals alongside them. The day pantry and lunch take place every Tuesday, while the evening pantry and dinner take place on Thursday.
