OUR HISTORY

Taproot Farm & Environmental Education Center (Taproot) was first envisioned in 2002 after Melissa Grella completed her Master’s degree project that researched the level of environmental education (EE) in 14 middles school in Coös County, New Hampshire. Long before it was even called Taproot, long before boards and mission statements, before Facebook posts and websites, before the Lancaster Community Garden or the Root Seller Marketplace even existed, before all of this, the idea for Taproot emerged from a simple notion of teaching people to care for the Earth.

OUR TIMELINE

June 2011 -

  • Lancaster Community Garden awarded a Tillotson Grant under the auspices of fiscal sponsor the Red Eft Project

  • Temporary garden planted behind All Saints Catholic Church for the food pantry

May 2012 -

  • Garden raising with 30+ volunteers who turned out to build our garden on the site of the former Elm's Hotel.

  • The inaugural growing period begins with 21 gardeners. Fees were waived and gardeners were asked to share some of their produce with the food pantry.

March 2015 -

  • The founding board members incorporate Taproot Farm & Environmental Education Center (Taproot) as a NH non-profit organization

  • The Lancaster Community Garden is absorbed as a program of Taproot's

May 2015 - 

  • Taproot’s North Country Gleaners joins the NH Gleans network.

July 2015 -

  • An anonymous community member lends Taproot the start-up costs for the Root Seller Marketplace interest-free.

  • The first gleans begin, with food donations going to the Lancaster Community Cupboard.

October 2015 - 

  • Taproot opens the Root Seller Marketplace with 5 Local Direct Vendors.

July 2016 -

  • North Country Gleaners picks up the Tyler Blaine House, SAU 36 summer food program, and the food pantry in Whitefield as recipient sites, along with 5 gleaning volunteers.

October 2016 -

  • Taproot celebrates the Root Seller Marketplace's 1-year anniversary with an Open House. It now has 40 Local Direct Vendors selling their products out of the store.

January 2017 -

  • Taproot is invited to work with the students of the Gilman-Lunenburg schools in Vermont for its first educational programming.

March 2017 -

  • Taproot receives its 501(c)3 tax-exempt status from the IRS.

April 2017 -

  • Taproot's website goes live.

May 2017 -

  • The Lancaster Community Garden rents the most garden beds since it began - 32 beds!

June 2017 -

  • Taproot hires its first employees - its Executive Director and the Sales Associate for the Root Seller Marketplace.

  • Taproot works with the Lunenburg, VT students to plant a school garden.

  • NH Gleans- North Country picks up the All Saints Catholic Church Community Dinner in Lancaster and the Berlin Food Pantry as recipient sites.

  • Taproot hosts "Rockin' the Park", a 5-week concert series that takes place in Centennial Park in Lancaster that celebrates local music, local food, and community

July 2017 -

  • Taproot works with the Lunenburg Elementary School to host a Garden Nutrition camp program thanks to a grant from the VT Community Garden Network.

April 2018 -

  • Taproot hosts a 1-day/week after school program for the children of the Lunenburg Elementary School.

May 2018 -

  • Taproot partners with the Northern Forest Center to select and renovate a building on Main Street in Lancaster to move the Root Seller into a larger space.

 July 2018

  •  Taproot receives a $197,000 grant from the Northern Border Regional Commission to renovate a vacant storefront in downtown Lancaster in which to expand the Root Seller.

  • Taproot hosts its first nature based summer camp for two weeks on the campus of White Mountains Regional High School.

 November 2018

  •  North Country Gleaners wraps up its most successful gleaning season to date, having distributed more than 3000 pounds of produce to 14 recipient organizations.

December 2019

  • Taproot purchases the Lancaster Community Garden property

March 2020

  • Work on the historic Parker J. Noyes (PJN) building commences, the site of our newly expanded Marketplace.

April 2021

  • We hired our first Food Access Coordinator to take the helm of the newly reorganized program that includes the Lancaster Community Garden, the SNAP Incentives, Plant-a-Row, Gleaning, and Farm CSA Share.

May 2021

  • Our first Environmental Education Coordinator is hired.

November 2021

  • Our first Marketplace Manager is hired allowing our Executive Director to step away from the Marketplace and focus on the organization as a whole.

February 2022

  • Taproot Farm & Environmental Education Center finally finds its new home on the Windhover property in Jefferson where we launch our Homeschool Education Series.