A big THANKS, and some kudos

First of all, I want to give a big public thank you to Baker Creek Nursery for donating some seed packets to Harvest Stewards. My wife and I have bought seeds from them before and we have only ever been pleased with what we've received. I can't fully express how grateful I am to Baker Creek for such a kind donation.

And next, the kudos: I just received my order from Cross Country Nurseries. Their selection is amazing and I was so pleased to see such healthy big plants with such well-developed roots. Good on ya', guys!

UPDATE [3 May 2010]:
I just received the box of seeds from Baker Creek. It's 5lbs worth of seeds. That is a HUGE quantity of seeds! I haven't been able to go through the lot of them yet- there are SO many. Later on today or tomorrow, I'll have them catalogued, and I'll post the list.

A present and pressing need

Did you see this?

Food prices jumped by 2.4 percent in March, the most since January 1984. Vegetable prices soared by more than 49 percent, the most in 15 years.

Now imagine if Steward gardens popped up all over the place... It wouldn't "fix" the rise in prices, but it would give a helping hand to those least able to accommodate it economically.

Garden #1 (I hope!)

Looks like my own church, Latonia Baptist Church, may be on board for a Harvest Steward garden plot! The church-sponsored Boy Scout Troop 17 will play a major part in the project too.

Step 2: the EIN

Now that tax day has past, I get to spend a little more time dealing with IRS forms. On my plate now is the form SS-4, the application for an employer ID number (EIN). I'm not really an employer, per se, but an EIN is required for a letter of exemption- in other words, it will allow me to accept charitable donations and donors can itemize it on their returns (more on that later). The IRS has made this part of the process almost perfectly painless. I say almost because the website has a way of thinking that I'm telling it that I'm a "health care organization" rather than a... whatever I really am, something more like a social services type of thing. We'll get to the bottom of this soon and then we'll have a lot of fun with form 1023. Cripes, you don't even want to know about form 1023...

Incorporated

Harvest Stewards is officially now Harvest Stewards, LLC. I just did the paperwork with the KY Secretary of State, paid my $40 and, bang, there ya go. Next step is the IRS and getting an EIN and exemption letter. In the meantime, I'm scoping out some potential participants...

The process...

As I mentioned before, harvest Stewards is not yet a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, although I intend it to be. The process of getting there goes a little something like this: first, I will incorporate as a non-profit limited-liability company (LLC), a fairly simple process accomplished through the KY Secretary of State. Then I'll get an employer identification number (EIN) from the IRS, also a reasonably simple process. Last of all, I have to get an "exemption letter" from the IRS... I don't know about this process, but I expect that it will take the most time and patience.

Following all that, Harvest Stewards will be "official". regardless of how long it takes to accomplish the process, I'll still be working on getting gardener commitments etc.

Speaking of which: if you're in the Greater Cincinnati/Northern KY area and would like to participate as a Harvest Steward, please drop me an email. I'd love to include you in this work!