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Mindful Nourishment Matters
Mindful Nourishment Matters is our community outreach initiative to provide education and resources for eaters, home and community gardeners as well as creating local market demand for farmers. We found a need for more awareness and education around locally and sustainably grown foods and how it can impact our health, environment and local economy.
Our Initiatives
Community Garden
Food connects us—to the earth, to our health, and to each other. That’s why we’re excited to announce the launch of a new community garden at 701 E Montgomery Street in Knoxville, Iowa. This will be a shared space where neighbors can grow food, learn new skills, and build a stronger, healthier community.
Community Outreach
Outward-facing efforts to educate our local community on issues that drive support of local, sustainable farms. Activities will include educational events, cooking classes, nutrition education, and showcasing local producers. We will highlight issues of food security, access, and how agricultural practices affect our nutrition and environment. Our first event was a free film screening in February 2025, followed by a successful seed and plant swap. Celebrate the Autumn Equinox and our Community Garden Kick Off Festival in September and cooking classes this winter.
Food Market
Work in progress...
A long term goal is to have retail space to aggregate local foods for convenient purchase by consumers. This would include an online store and storage space that will support and augment the food hub by extending shelf-life and adding an outlet for sales on a consistent basis. Retail space could also allow us to process local foods into more shelf stable products and preserve seasonal bounties. We can also tie in our food is medicine programs.
Food Hub
A Work in progress
Food hubs facilitate the aggregation, marketing and/or distribution of products from local farmers to consumers (households, retailers, restaurants, institutions, and wholesalers) by developing scale efficiency and improving distribution. We may also offer commercial processing space, equipment, expertise and resources to support business development and growth. We are actively engaging with other food hubs in Iowa and farmers to learn best practices we can employ and the specific needs of our area to make it as effective as possible once we launch.
Food is Medicine programs
A Work in progress...
You are what you eat, right? We hope to develop local connections between food and healthcare to prevent and reduce chronic diet related disease.
Food is Medicine interventions include the provision of foods that support health, such as medically tailored meals or groceries, or food assistance, such as vouchers for produce. Our first target program is a food prescription program that would use a local CSA to provide weekly vegetable boxes to participating members along with health coaching and nutrition education.
While we work on this complex issue, check out our healthy local eating guides to start you on the path to a more nutrient dense diet.