Guests get taste of farm

The Cobblestone Project patrons will get a taste of the farm Friday evening at the fourth annual “Harvest Party.” The event at Morter Farm in Rogers is the nonprofit organization’s sole fundraising event. It will feature a farm-to-table meal prepared by Chef Luke Wetzel of Oven and Tap in Bentonville and will begin with a cocktail hour.

The nonprofit working farm in Fayetteville donates more than half of its yield of fresh produce and eggs to area hunger relief efforts that include Northwest Arkansas Food Bank, Samaritan House, Fayetteville Public Library “Books & Bites” event, Second Street Pantry of First United Methodist Church in Bentonville and LifeSource International.

“We provide fresh produce to Northwest Arkansas residents who can’t afford to purchase it,” said Jennifer Watts, board member. The group donated 15,000 pounds of produce and 960 fresh eggs in the past year.

The group offers educational programs for children and adults and has partnerships with the Veterans

Administration and Brightwater: A Center for the Study of Food.

Watts said, in the near future, Cobblestone will grow produce in a greenhouse on the Brightwater campus in Bentonville. Half will be used in culinary classrooms — with culinary students volunteering in the greenhouse — and the remainder of the produce will go toward hunger relief.

Also on the horizon is the group’s “Junior Chef ” program, operated in conjunction with the Boys & Girls Club of Fayetteville and Brightwater.

NWA Democrat-Gazette/ANDY SHUPE Ben Alvis of Springdale (right) and Adrian Leffingwell, assistant farm director for The Cobblestone Project Farm in Fayetteville, prepare a bed for last year’s tomato plants inside the farm’s hoop house. Alvis is a veteran of the U.S. Army and works at...