Milking Parlor Fundraiser
Pumpkin Vine Family Farm Needs Help To Complete Our New Milking Parlor!
The hard-working dairy goats (and farmers!) of Pumpkin Vine Family Farm are looking for help to finish their new milking parlor!
When we were just starting out, we were hand-milking 4 goats and we made our chevre in a 3.5 gallon vat!
Fast forward to 2024, when we have 43 goats milking; we make chevre, feta and hard cheeses in a 100 gallon cheese vat; and our amazing goats provide milk to two other award-winning creameries!!
Just as we have come a long way, we are still growing, trying to meet the needs of an expanding market, a growing herd, AND lead a more balanced life. A huge step will be the completion of our new milking parlor, which will allow us to milk 12 (eventually 24) goats at once, in a quarter of the time and a much more ergonomic way.
In 2022, we were proud to be awarded a prestigous grant to build a new milking parlor, in recognition of our contribution to the Maine agricultural economy. However, it has taken us a very long time to find a contractor willing to work on a farm-based project. And, during this time, building costs in midcoast Maine have gone up, as land around us is in high demand for new homes.
Two Years Later, construction on our milking parlor was FINALLY ready to begin. However, by the time they finally started digging this spring, we were faced with two holes: the actual hole in the ground, and the financial hole of $40,000 more in construction costs.
So, We Started Fundraising!
We immediately established a fundraiser and are delighted to report that we have raised more than $12,000, through our genorous friends and neighbors hosting pie sales and art sales and individual donations through our GoFundMe page!
Those donations have allowed us to stay on track, and recently the first walls of the milking parlor were framed in.
We’re hoping they will be able to finish all the interior work (plumbing, installation of milking pipeline, etc) this winter, so that we will be able to start milking in it next spring, with the arrival of the new babies. But we are still around $28,000 short!
To help, you can easily make a donation by going directly to our GoFundMe account – Any amount helps!!
You can also mail your donation to us here at the farm:
Pumpkin Vine Family Farm
217 Hewett Rd.
Somerville, Maine 04348
Or, contact us to learn more!
Thanks for allowing us to be part of your lives; we know ours are infinitely richer for each and every one of you who have become part of the Pumpkin Vine!
