Canada: Fundraiser collects $10,000 to help replace destroyed greenhouses, seedlings

Organic farmers in southwest Nova Scotia are bouncing back from a March weather bomb, with a little help from their friends. A local fundraiser is well on its way to raising $10,000 to help replace greenhouses and seedlings at Whippletree Farm near Annapolis Royal and Wild Rose Farm near Weymouth, destroyed by 140 km/h winds that hit the area on March 26.

“It was really frightening,” said Stewart Fotheringham of Whippletree Farm in an interview Tuesday. “We didn’t know if the roof would blow off.”

Fotheringham said he is ordering a new greenhouse, which he needs right away to grow tomato seedlings, and that will require taking out a loan. But he said the fundraiser, organized by a friend, Rowena Power, to offset the costs of recovering from the storm, has been amazing. “It’s been incredibly helpful,” he said, since the damage was considered an act of God and wasn’t covered by insurance.

Fotheringham said donations, many anonymous, have come from people who believe in and support what the organic farms do. “It touched a nerve,” he said.

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