Summary:
Welcome to another great episode of Startup Junkies!
On this episode, hosts Caleb Talley, Jeff Amerine, and Victoria Dickerson sit down with Kelton Hays, executive director of Cobblestone Farms. Cobblestone Farms is a local nonprofit committed to cultivating a community free from hunger by ensuring all people have access to fresh, nutritionally dense foods that are produced through sustainable agriculture practices. Throughout this episode, Kelton discusses the deeper mission of Cobblestone Farms and how important addressing food insecurity is to uplifting the community.
Show Notes:
(0:53) Introduction to Kelton
(1:34) Kelton’s Background
(5:20) Why Cobblestone Farms Needs to Exist
(11:03) Food Insecurity in Northwest Arkansas
(15:41) Being Unburdened by Shame
(17:35) Growing Food for Hunger Relief vs. Donating Food
(21:45) Raising Money
(30:54) Engaging Bigger Players
(37:51) Getting People Involved
(41:34) Advice to Younger Self
Links:
Quotes:
“If somebody were to ask us what we do at Cobblestone Farms and I wanted to be a little ethereal, a little heady, I would say we give people dignity. Food is a lot more than calories. We want people to have dignified access to great food in the same way any of us sitting in this room would have.” - Kelton Hays, (6:34)
“That’s the big picture. We want to give people dignity. We want people to feel dignity because your quality of life, your health outcomes, and your ability to thrive as a human being, if you do not possess dignity and live in shame, is going to be a negative outcome .” - Kelton Hays, (14:46)
“My heart is to mobilize individual community members. We all have such potential…We often get so intimidated by the magnitude of an issue or by our perceived inability to meet the issue that we think, ‘Well, I can’t do anything.’ Yeah, you can.” - Kelton Hays, (20:02)