There’s never been a time when locally grown food has been trendier. Call it farm-to-table, sustainable or locavore, fresh, organic food grown nearby is having its moment in the sun.
If you want to know your farmer personally and harvest produce on-site, here is the perfect opportunity: Get on board with Keipos, a CSA—community-supported agriculture—venture based at New Earth Farm in Papillion, Nebraska. Make a payment each month year-round (tax-deductible during the winter months) and pick produce once a week or bimonthly, according to your membership agreement, May through October. Or you can have it harvested for you and just pick it up. You’ll also receive discounts on meat, eggs and other products. You can even sponsor fresh food for others.
But Keipos is so much more. Keipos has a mission focus beyond food, born from the personal convictions of its owners. Meet Catherine and Jonathan Dodd, owner/operators of New Earth Farm and Keipos CSA. The couple met at L’Abri, a place for people with “questions about God and life in the context of community, study and manual labor.” After earning his master’s degree in divinity and working with Santa Martha de Loma Azul in Nicaragua, Jonathan founded Keipos in order to live an authentically Christian life in community with others and fight poverty with a program rooted in food, farming and education.
Catherine, Jonathan and their three children have since “given their home, their life and everything they have to restoring people and place, alleviating poverty and pain….” Through Keipos, they offer internships, workshops and missionary boot camps, tours, volunteer opportunities and more. A Kids’ Kamp teaches kids about farming, animals and healthy food at an early age.
They work with local government entities and NGOs and have created five additional garden sites in Papillion. They even have a garden at the Patrick J. Thomas Juvenile Justice Center. And Jonathan has taken more than 300 people to Nicaragua to install water, fish, sanitation, wood-burning, farming and horticultural systems. It doesn’t get much more personal and “down to earth” than what the Dodds and Keipos offer. They built a community so we can “grow food, eat together and give abundantly.”
To learn more, buy a membership or volunteer to get hands-on yourself, contact:
Catherine and Jonathan Dodd, Owner/Operators
New Earth Farm and Keipos CSA
catherine@keipos.org, jonathan@keipos.org
(402) 339-1384
