Alumni Wins from our Reunion Call - August 2026

August’s Reunion Check-In brought together our California, New York, Washington, and Wisconsin cohorts for a full afternoon of updates — far too many wins to list in full, but here's a representative sample from each program:

California Cohort

·       Justin Miller, Twin Peaks Orchards (Newcastle, CA) — Grew his food hub to over $300,000 in sales this year, sourcing from 30+ local producers.

·       Kayla Barthelme, medicinal herb farm (Long Island, NY) — Sold-out workshops all summer and a 5x increase in on-site drying capacity.

·       Rachel Kulchin, Blue Heron Farm (Bishop, CA) — Doubled vegetable production to offset a failed stone fruit crop.

·       Gavin Shawn, GAVA Grow (Hawaii) — Took over a 100-acre fruit orchard and turned it fully productive again in a single year.

·       Will Holloway, Longer Table Farm (California) — Kept vegetable sales stable through a tough season of property expansion.

New York Cohort

·       Taij Moteelall, Wild Seed Community Farm (Hudson Valley, NY) — Raised nearly $6 million toward a $15 million food hub capital campaign.

·       Zach Daro, Dmar Family Farms (Delaware) — Secured a $30,000 grant for two delivery trucks to expand food pantry distribution.

·       Christy Ottinger (Maryland) — Turned a Food Shed Capital loan — a direct FARMpreneurs connection — into a new event-space business.

·       Tiffany Thompson (Floyd, VA) — Purchased her farmland after 8 years of leasing and automated 7 of 12 high tunnels.

·       Monty Lawson, Catalyst Collaborative Farm (Hudson Valley, NY) — Presenting their theory of change to an outside investor cohort, building on the Walden Mutual impact-investment partnership.

Washington Cohort

·       Marcus Miller, vineyard (Washington State) — Farmed without systemic herbicides or insecticides for the first time, alongside launching a new wine label, Glider.

·       Danny Amend, Far Container Farm (Hudson Valley, NY) — Doubled sales in some months despite flooding-related power challenges.

·       Amy, Bumblebee Farm (Fall City, WA) — Nearly doubled farmers market sales and grew overall sales 25%, powered by a new solar irrigation grant.

·       Samantha Serini, Sunundreams Farm (southwestern PA) — Joined the board of Discover Bedford, the county tourism initiative.

Wisconsin Cohort

·       Nick Knighton, Half Moon Farm (Wisconsin) — Launched a new shelf-stable elderberry juice business following a post-program rebrand.

·       Michael Gutschenritter, Three Brothers Farm (Wisconsin) — Landed a major hunger-relief account supplying 750 dozen eggs/week and is launching a nonprofit to expand that work.

·       Ryan Sullivan (Wisconsin) — Won $5,000 from Wisconsin Veterans and grew a partnership now supplying 20 pantries across three counties.

·       Anna Peshek, Over the Moon Farm & Flowers (eastern Iowa) — Rebranded and hit $200K toward a $350K year-end sales goal.

·       Shelly Rothman, Good Trouble Grove (Green Lake, WI) — Went full-time farming and is scaling chestnut agroforestry with a SARE grant.

Common threads ran through nearly every update: farmers scaling into food hub and aggregation models as a defining “next stage” move, a wave of climate-driven production challenges (failed stone fruit harvests, hurricanes, wildfire smoke), ongoing land access struggles balanced by hard-earned land purchases, and — most encouragingly — a network that keeps paying dividends well after the program ends, from peer-to-peer hires and shared financing tools to alumni still leaning on program materials and faculty relationships months and years later.