In 2019, the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance’s Farm and Food Leadership Conference was held in San Marcos, Texas. For the first time, FARFA partnered with Texas State University’s Small Producer’s Initiative, to offer more sessions, speakers, and workshops than ever.

Webb Elementary School is a Title I school and home to nearly 400 students in grades K-5 on McKinney’s east side. Nearly three quarters of the students enrolled are on free or reduced lunch programs.

Farmers markets are wonderful, but there is nothing like actually visiting a farm to make you feel truly connected to the people that grow your food. For our spring farm tour this year, we visited Water Boy Farms in Lucas, Pure Land Farm in McKinney, and Stonebranch Microfarm in Celina.

Easily our favorite event of the year, the fourth annual Chef and Farmer Pot Luck was held at Water Boy Farms on Memorial Day Weekend. Due to the never-ending rain this spring, it was too muddy to set a long table in the paddock as we usually do, but that wasn’t going to slow us down!

It was a beautiful rare spring day in 2019, rare because it wasn’t raining! A hundred guests gathered at the long table in the meadow for a special Supper with a Cause to support the Connemara Conservancy Foundation.

Hugs Café is a very special place. Just off the square in Downtown McKinney, Hugs is a restaurant staffed almost entirely by adults with special needs. It was a dream of founder Ruth Thompson.

The Seed Project held our first North Texas Farm-to-Table Symposium of the year in the Ballroom of the Grand Hotel in Downtown McKinney. Nearly 140 local farmers, ranchers, local food advocates, chefs, restaurateurs attended.

Seventy degrees and sunny, the perfect North Texas fall day. We sold out our first ever outdoor Gala in the Garden at Water Boy Farms weeks earlier and a dozen people were scattered on the farm, deep into event preparation for the night, with a little black cloud overhead; the forecast called for 90% severe storms at 8pm, exactly the time of our live auction.