Pat & Rachels Gardens LLC is an active owner-member of the Kansas City Food Hub, a farmer-owned cooperative serving the Kansas City area. Our farm serves as a sub-hub for the Kansas City Food Hub where farmers’ produce is cooled and stored before distribution. We joined the Overland Park Farmer’s Market in 2017 and The Brookside Farmer’s Market in 2018. We supply organic produce to the Community Mercantile in Lawrence. Pat & Rachel’s Gardens LLC is one of the only certified organic processing facilities in the Kansas City area. We help farmers add value to their products. We are a long-time member of the KC Food Circle which is now run by and KC Healthy Kids and their Roots for Refugees program and are also members of the Kansas Specialty Crop Growers Association. Kansas State University Olathe Campus gave us our FSMA training and food safety training. Johnson County Community College frequently brings their Sustainable Agriculture classes for field trips to our farm. We have hosted an educational presentation on hoophouse construction and season extension and conducted a farm tour for Miami County Extension Services and presented a workshop for University of Missouri Extension on how Value-added products can add to the profitability of the small farm. We partner with Food for the Cure, a non-profit who donates organic produce to cancer patients, and Catholic Charities of Northeast Kansas. We are very grateful for the support we have received from SARE (Sustainable Agricultural Research and Education) who awarded us USDA farmer-rancher grants for research in 2018, 2019, and 2020 . On April of 2019, attendees of the MANRRS (Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Related Sciences) conference in Overland Park toured our farm and facilities. We have special relationships with Heartland Honey, Red Ridge Farm, and Five Miles Farm. Working with homeschooling families of St. Monica’s Homeschool Community has been a real joy for us as we make the farm an extension of their curriculum. We are a member of From the Land of Kansas which promotes Kansas businesses.
