Happy Hour TONIGHT!

Almost another week down... and to get a jump start on the weekend, LLF is hosting its Happy Hour this evening at Fish Restaurant located at 442 King Street, downtown Charleston.

We host a Happy Hour the last Thursday of every month at a different member location. These get togethers always end up being a blast and a great way for everyone to network and socialize. We welcome all - members and non-members alike! So come out and show your support for LLF while sipping a cocktail! Tonight, Fish is offering free appetizers and $4 drink specials. Live music starts at 7:30pm.

Come get some local lovin'!

Gearin' Up for the Directory!

Super busy morning here at the office. We're gearing up for the printing of the 3rd edition of the Directory of Local Independent Businesses. We will be distributing 20,000+ Directories to the greater Charleston area this upcoming fall to kick off our "Buy Local" Month! The Directory is a great tool if you're trying to shop and source locally here in Charleston; they are available at our member businesses and at the CVB.

If you're interested in finding out more about the Directory or if you're interested in listing your business, contact me at amy@lowcountrylocalfirst.org.

Happy Hump Day!

Lunch at Closed for Business

After a meeting downtown this morning, Jamee and I decided to head over to Closed for Business for lunch. CFB is REV's (LLF member) newest restaurant - a fantastic craft beer bar that opened this past January. Jamee and I split a bowl of their Roasted Corn Soup and each had a Southern Chopped Salad full of local veggies! Yum!

CFB is located at 453 King Street. If you're in the area this evening, every Tuesday is "Kick the Keg Night," which means $4 Pints of Victory Hop Wallop, Sea Dog Blue Paw and Dogfish Head Chicory Stout.

'Tis the Season

Sign up for your fall CSA! Charleston is extremely lucky to have quite a few farms who are now running their own Community Supported Agriculture Programs. To find out more info, click here!

Food & Farming Entrepreneurship Course

Another great component to our Growing New Farmers Incubator Program is our Food & Farming Entrepreneurship Course. We have par terned with FastTracSC and Clemson to offer a business planning course for those interested in food system entrepreneurship in the Lowcountry. This was the first time this course was ever offered. The course was 9 weeks long - the graduation will be held next Thursday!

We've had some phenomenal speakers come to participate in the course. This week, the speakers were: Brady Waggoner from HOOK, Greg Garvan from Money With a Mission, Bernie Mazyck from SC Association of CDCs, and Tiffany from Aio Design. Thank you all so much!

The class will be offered again this upcoming fall. If you think you might be interested in taking the class, get into touch with Elizabeth at elizabeth@lowcountrylocalfirst.org.

Where has the summer gone?

I can't believe it's almost August - where does the time go? Summer was supposed to be "quiet" and devoted to planning here at LLF. However, it's been anything but! The Online Market is in full-swing and the apprenticeship program has taken off. We've been hard at work at the office writing grants, looking into projects and managing our ever-growing membership.

Many thanks to all of you who make this possible! We heart you!

Sustainable Agriculture Program Planning Day

The LLF team sat for 3 hours this morning planning for the next year's Sustainable Agriculture Program. We have some exciting stuff in the mix and are extremely excited!

Hydroponics

Our newest Founding Partner, George Nelson of Sweetbay Produce & Nursery, came over to the office this morning to meet with Elizabeth and me. Now here's a man with a vision! George has a 10,000 sq. ft. hydroponics facility located in Huger, SC.

George has grown arugula, basils, pak choi, romaines, multi-lettuces and butterheads with plans to expand into other various crop varieties.

Local herbs in winter? Sure! Local greens in January? You got it! I think he's onto something...

Our Apprentices

Shout out to the participants in our Growing New Farmers Incubator Project! Matt Frye, Nikki Seibert and Julie Hart are our full-time apprentices. Each work on three area farms (Rosebank Farms, Joseph Fields Farm and Our Local Foods/Thornhill Farm.)

These amazing individuals are our first cohort to go through the program and have worked extremely hard to help us work out the kinks. Each week they complete crop walks, harvest produce from the fields, sort and deliver produce to our partner chefs, manage the online market, participate in farm/entrepreneurship courses and much more!

We can't even begin to say how lucky we are to have such wonderful people. Keep up the good work!

Urban Garden Bike Tour - This Saturday!

Our fabulous Sustainable Agriculture Director, Elizabeth Beaks, has organized a Urban Agriculture Bike Tour around downtown Charleston for this upcoming Saturday, July 17th. If you're interested in checking out some of downtown's urban gardens, just show up! Details below...

WHEN: Saturday July 17th

WHERE: Meet at Gadsen Street Garden (see map of tour route)

WHAT TO BRING: Bike, money for lunch, sun attire, etc.

Agenda

• 9:00am Check in with LLF if you need to chat
• 9:30-10:00am Tour begins at Gadsen Streen Garden
• 10:30-11:00am Green Heart School Garden Tour (#2 Perry St. Mitchelle Elementary School front yard, in front of the park)
• 11:20-12:10pm Elliotborough Community Garden Tour (134 Line Street, in Elliotborough Park, at the back of the park)/Bogarden Tour (southeast corner of Rutledge and Bogard St.)
• 12:30pm Taco Boy Downtown (217 Huger Street)
• 12:40-1:00pm Josh Martin from the Coastal Conservation League will discuss Agriculture and Urban zoning
• 1:00-1:30pm Urban Farming Panel/group discussion/questions/resource sharing
• 1:30 until whenever Hang out!

If you have questions, please email Elizabeth at elizabeth@lowcountrylocalfirst.org

July Member Meeting

We're pumped for our July Member Meeting this evening! Judith Moore will be hosting the meeting at her business, The Charleston Cookie Company! She is located on James Island 1750 Signal Point Road.

Meetings are open to the public, so come out! The meetings are casual and include plenty of time for socializing. We typically make any necessary announcements which are then followed by short presentations by member businesses. Join us and get to know the locals!

We HEART our Committees!

We are extremely fortunate to have groups of wonderful people who donate their time and energies to help LLF! We have a number of different committees that are working tirelessly to help us improve what we do.

Our Membership Committee has launched its Membership Drive and is planning for a special event towards the end of the summer! Keep your eyes and ears open!

Our Directory Committee is gearing up for the 3rd annual edition of our Directory of Local Independent Businesses that will be released this upcoming fall.

Our Buy Local Committee is working on an LLF Loyalty Card to encourage local retail spending.

Big thanks to all you fantastic people!

New Member!

Slather Brand Foods is LLF's newest member! Check out Robin Rhea's Slatherin' Sauce! Yum!

Welcome!

Wild Flour and King Bean

Board Meeting this morning - and you know what that means... pastries and coffee!! Thank you to our members WildFlour Pastry and King Bean Coffee for supplying us with the goods!

Don't forget to visit the Downtown Farmer's Market tomorrow morning and thank your local farmer. Have a great weekend!

Produce Delivery Day

Thursdays are produce delivery day! LLF has partnered with 3 farms (Joseph Fields, Our Local Foods and Rosebank Farm) and seven restaurants (REV, Al Di La, Fish, FIG, The Glass Onion, McCrady's and Med Bistro) to pilot our Farm Fresh Online Market. Each week, seasonal produce from the three farms is uploaded onto the site by our fabulous apprentices. Come Tuesday, chefs will go online and place an order for the week!

The apprentices are harvesting as I type! Chefs will receive their orders tomorrow.
We are now into the 3rd month of the pilot market and (after some initial growing pains) have streamlined the system.

For more info, feel free to give us a call at 843.740.5444.

We're Baaaaaaa - ck!!

(Sheep from our 3rd Annual Chef's Potluck this past May!)

LLF is officially back on the blog scene, and since our last blog post was in December (sorry!), lots has changed!

I encourage you to check out our new and improved website! Browse around and be sure to check out our Growing New Farmers Incubator Project that we launched this spring!

Will be sure to keep much more up to date (daily, hopefully) postings! Oh.. and happy belated "Independent's" Day!