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Tide Mill Farm Gets a Poultry Processing Plant!

Strengthening our farm and other farms in the region by raising organic poultry year round.

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Tide Mill Farm Gets a Poultry Processing Plant!

Tide Mill Farm Gets a Poultry Processing Plant!

Tide Mill Farm Gets a Poultry Processing Plant!

Tide Mill Farm Gets a Poultry Processing Plant!

Tide Mill Farm Gets a Poultry Processing Plant!

Strengthening our farm and other farms in the region by raising organic poultry year round.

Strengthening our farm and other farms in the region by raising organic poultry year round.

Strengthening our farm and other farms in the region by raising organic poultry year round.

Strengthening our farm and other farms in the region by raising organic poultry year round.

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1 Campaign |
Edmunds, United States
$25,300 USD 195 backers
101% of $25,000 Flexible Goal Flexible Goal

From the left, we are Carly DelSignore (holding Ruthie) and Hailey, Henry, Paige and Aaron Bell.  The Bells have farmed on Tide Mill Farm in Down East Maine since 1765.

Our mission is to earn our living together growing and providing nourishing food while promoting healthy lifestyles, partnership with the land, and strengthening the economy of Washington County, Maine.

Please join our campaign to raise $25,000 to help finish the construction of a USDA inspected poultry processing plant on our farm.  We have a $100,000 budget gap remaining on this project, and anything we raise above $25,000 will further help us close this gap.  Your gift will support organic family farms in rural Maine.


At Tide Mill Organic Farm we produce dairy products, beef, turkey, pork, vegetables, seedlings, and Christmas wreaths.  Dairy and poultry are our two largest operations.   A poultry processing plant will help our farm as well as others in the region.  With a USDA inspected plant nearby, other farmers can raise poultry for us, earn more income and contribute more food to help our community be more sustainable.  We can also process birds for families who raise poultry for their own freezers.

WHY ARE WE BUILDING A POULTRY PROCESSING PLANT?

Our new poultry processing facility will allow us to:

  • Provide a steady income to the farm
  • Raise and sell more chicken year round
  • Increase turkey production
  • Process more than 20,000 birds a year
  • Add more fertility to our fields from chicken manure
  • Contract with neighboring farms to raise chickens
  • Sell poultry out of state
  • Process chickens for 'back-yard' farmers
  • Work in a facility that is efficient and easy to clean
  • Never process Thanksgiving turkeys outdoors in November again!

PASTURE RAISED POULTRY

Our chickens live in pens protected from predators and are moved to new grass every 24 hours adding fertility to our hay fields.  We also feed them certified organic grains.


THE POULTRY PROCESSING FACILITY

Building a USDA processing plant is expensive!  But it will allow us to expand our business in ways that benefit our farm, our community, and customers throughout Maine and beyond.  A local contractor is helping us build the facility and the winter poultry barn.  We've done all the site work ourselves and supplied lumber from our farm to keep the costs down.  But we still need to raise more money, and we need your help to do it!

THE WINTER POULTRY BARN

We are also building a heated hoop house with openings to the outdoors to raise chickens during the winter months. 

Farming At Tide Mill Since 1765

Members of the 7th, 8th and 9th generations of Bells live and work on the farm.  Aaron's father, Bob, and Uncle Terry operate Tide Mill Enterprises, a forestry and blueberry harvesting business.  Aaron's cousin, Rachel, buys milk from the farm and makes delicious organic cheese, kefir and yogurt at Tide Mill Creamery.  Together we employ more than 32 people in our County, which has the highest unemployment in Maine.

In 1990 with help from Maine Coast Heritage Trust and Land for Maine's Future our family put a conservation easement on the farm, limiting future development here and forever protecting the land as farmland.

TESTIMONIALS:

"Our customers say this is the best poultry they've ever tasted!" Brian Worcester, Sawyer's Market, Southwest Harbor, Maine

"Tide Mill Farm's high quality chicken never disappoints.  Carly DelSignore and Aaron Bell are leaders in the organic farming movement in Maine, and when opportunities arise for them to better the future of their farm and others, they do so.  It is a rare treat when our values and our taste buds agree on quality.  I wholeheartedly support their efforts."  Marada Cook, Crown of Maine Cooperative, Northern Girl and Fiddler's Green Farm


CREDITS:  Thanks to Amanda Kowalski for the campaign video (www.amandakowalskiphoto.com), Jane Bell for her fabulous photographs, and Brian Fitzgerald and Beth Warner for their photos in the Gallery.

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Choose your Perk

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Fox Street Society Membership

$250 USD
A rising tide lifts all boats. Rising Tide Brewing of Portland is teaming up with us to offer membership in their beer CSA, which entitles you to 12 growler fills and a 10% discount off store merchandise. Growler included!
Estimated Shipping
February 2015
4 out of 5 of claimed

E-mail thank you card

$10 USD
A no-paper thank you!
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April 2015
5 claimed

Rising Tide Pint Glass

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Lift a glass to Rising Tide Brewing and Tide Mill Organic Farm.
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13 out of 48 of claimed

Thank you post card

$25 USD
A photo of our farm
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April 2015
9 claimed

Bumpersticker

$50 USD
Tide Mill Organic Farm logo
Estimated Shipping
April 2015
14 claimed

Our gratitude

$75 USD
No perk, thanks.
10 claimed

Name a calf

$100 USD
Name one of the many calves born on our farm in 2015, and we'll send you a photo by e-mail.
16 out of 40 of claimed

Tide Mill Organic Farm hat

$150 USD
A baseball hat with our logo.
Estimated Shipping
April 2015
8 claimed

Tide Mill Salami

$250 USD
A hard salami made with beef and pork from our farm by Smiths Smokehouse in Monroe, Maine.
Estimated Shipping
April 2015
7 out of 50 of claimed

Holiday Wreath

$300 USD
A Tide Mill Seaside Balsam Wreath made on our farm.
Estimated Shipping
December 2015
0 claimed

Food from our farm

$500 USD
A $50 gift certificate to purchase food from our farm plus a Tide Mill Organic Farm mug. Available for pick up at the farm in 2015.
2 claimed

More gratitude

$1,000 USD
No perk, thanks.
4 claimed

Stay in the farmhouse

$2,000 USD
2 Night stay in the white farmhouse shown at the beginning of the film. 3 bedrooms (4 beds); 2 bathrooms. This is a farm stay! The farm business office is on the first floor, and the kitchen is shared with a farmworker, who lives in the farmhouse. To be arranged at mutually convenient date.
0 out of 5 of claimed

Tide Mill Farm stay and Merch!

$5,000 USD
Two night farm stay with $50 worth of food plus post card, bumper sticker, hat, mug, and 2015 wreath. (See previous descriptions.)
Estimated Shipping
December 2015
0 out of 5 of claimed

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