On May 20, 2010 Woody Tasch, author of Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms, and Fertility Mattered (Chelsea Green), and SOIL: Notes Towards the Theory and Practice of Nurture Capital, (Slow Money Institute) spoke in Pittsboro, NC and several of us in the audience responded to his challenge to move a portion of our investments into local farm and food enterprises.
We founded Slow Money NC, created this website, made a few loans and have been catalyzing community financing for local, sustainable farmers and food entrepreneurs in North Carolina ever since.
Meanwhile, other Slow Money networks have come and gone across the US and beyond and, as a result, dozens of farmers and local food enterprises have flourished. You can read more about the Slow Money Institute and find links to the other local networks here.
Here's a photo from that auspicious day in May 2010. We are standing outside the Pittsboro General Store, now the Pittsboro Roadhouse, which as that time had this fabulous mural. Mike Ortosky (blue shirt far right) and Tony Kleese (pale green shirt bottom row middle) had brought Woody to town.
Tony has moved on to help farmers from a heavenly realm, and we are forever grateful for his many years of love and work to promote sustain farming.