Join us on August 17, 2024 in celebrating Nature Connection of West Milford’s first year of community in nature! (rain date, August 24)
We still support the local projects you know and love: the West Milford Farmers Market, Community Gardens, Ample Harvest… but with our new focus on building connection with nature and neighbors. NCWM has spent the last year envisioning new ways to bring residents the education and resources they need to forge an even stronger connection to our natural surroundings. 2024 promises to begin the process of bringing everything we’ve envisioned to reality.
About NCWM Harvest Gala Charity Event
The Harvest Gala is a chance to commemorate a year of hard work in the gardens, of local commerce at the farmers market, and our new focus of connection between people and nature. By bringing individuals together with community, and community together in nature, we strengthen our relationship with ourselves and our bodies, and support an interdependent triangle between all three.
It has long been known that the strength of our community, environment and individuals is directly related to the strength of the connections between them. Many recent studies, such as this one published in the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, have begun to research the benefits connecting with nature and others has not only for mental and physical health, but also the social and economic health of our communities as well.
The NCWM Harvest Gala is an opportunity to celebrate a full year of this new focus of bringing community together with nature. We are grateful for the connections we have made and strengthened, and celebrate the hope that together we can support West Milford’s social and economic growth, as well as the collective health of our individuals, community and local environment.
How fundraising will support the West Milford Community
All proceeds of this fundraising event will support this vision, and include new targets for harvesting and transporting more produce to community members in need, as well as building a winterized greenhouse that will further contribute to local food resiliency. We additionally hope to use this fundraising to continue our efforts to build an intuitive online portal that easily and effectively connects our community to the local resources they need (and may not have known existed), and ultimately engages more residents and regional neighbors to make the connection.
We look forward to celebrating our growth with you as we build the foundation for a stronger, more connected community and environment of West Milford at a very special event.
Save the date and stay tuned for more information on NCWM’s 2024 Harvest Gala, and become a part of a powerful new future that values our local environment and all it has to offer as highly as the communities it supports.
