The best grants result not only in the immediate fulfillment of a grant obligation, but also result in new good things that follow on from that original investment. This is a story about the very good things that are following from a Building Resilient Communities grant to The Lively Farm.
Groundwork started its Building Resilient Communities program three years ago with the core strategy of offering grants of $2,000 and consultation support to organizations such as schools, food pantries, farms, and others to expand access to locally grown food. More than 30 grants have been offered thus far, and one of them went to The Lively Farm, just east of Empire on M-72.
Jane Lively, lead farmer at the Lively Farm, invested some of the funds in harvest equipment used to store food destined for farm-share customers. She also invested in advertising and working with the nearby Glen Lake Community Schools on food access programs. At a pop-up farmers market at the school, Jane spoke with kids about food access and the importance of a local food economy—novel ideas to many of the students—and handed out free vegetables from her farm. The projects elevated her profile in the community, led to more business, helped stabilize her cash flow, and put her farm on more solid footing for the following growing season.
All of those results would be enough to call the grant a win for our Building Resilient Communities program, but the $2,000 that went to The Lively Farm kept on giving because Jane’s work helped focus the vision for her family’s land and put some even bigger things in motion.
The expanding market building.
Beautiful veggies at the farm.
The inviting entryway at The Lively NeighborFood Market.
The land that Jane farms is on 19 acres once owned by the Fraternal Order of Eagles for community gatherings. Jane’s family purchased the parcel in 2019 with a vision to open a campground and host concerts and other gatherings. But as Jane’s farm stabilized and matured, the family’s vision for the future of their place evolved too.
Today the family is in the midst of developing a “farm stop,” named The Lively NeighborFood Market, located just up a slight rise from Jane’s farm plots. Farm stop, most simply described as an every-day, year-round farmers market, is a concept that is new-ish but on the rise around the nation. At the heart of the idea is furthering access to local food—an echo of the purpose of Jane’s BRC grant. “It’s a hyper-local food market,” explains Jane’s dad, Jim Lively. The market will sell only food that is grown or produced nearby, and the primary customer base will be a mix of year-round locals, resorters, and tourists visiting this high-profile vacation destination. Also important for food access, the farm stop will accept purchases through government food assistance programs like SNAP. “It’s a separate business from Jane’s farm, but it’s the same piece of property, the same family, and the same mission to make food accessible,” Jim says.
The focus on access to local food is of course an outgrowth of Jane’s work, but the focus is also a natural extension of the work Jane’s parents, Jim and Kelly Lively, have done during their careers. Kelly worked for nearly a decade with Cherry Capital Foods, which was a leading early innovator in marketing and distributing locally grown food. And Jim worked 22 years with Groundwork, was actively involved when Groundwork launched and grew its local food program, and served as program director for several years before he left in 2022.
Jim Lively, co-founder of Lively NeighborFood Market.
Jane Lively works the farm plots.
The Livelys aim to open the farm stop on Memorial Day 2024 and have been renovating a building that the Eagles organization had built more than 30 years ago. A key piece of the renovation is already complete: a commercial kitchen that will be made available to people who need a space for, say, catering or doing small-scale processed food like jams or salsas. Empire-based caterers Mel and Fel have signed on as anchor tenants for the commercial kitchen and will be managing the space.
The Livelys have also committed to a goal of making the farm stop a net-zero carbon facility. “We will have no gas, propane, or heating oil,” Jim says. All cooking and heating will be powered by electricity, and solar panels will cover the roof. “We are maxing out the amount of electricity production that Cherryland Electric Co-Op will allow us to do.”
The Livelys are currently raising funds to complete the renovation of the market building and install the solar array. “It’s a crowdfunding approach, similar to an old style barn raising,” Jim says. “At this point we are reaching out to individuals in a quiet campaign, meeting with them one to one, and we recently launched a public GoFundMe campaign!”
If you are interested in helping fund the The Lively NeighborFood Market, go to the GoFundMe page or contact Jim Lively at jim@livelyneighborfood.com, or 231.360.7222. 
Jeff Smith is Groundwork’s Communication Director.
jeff.smith@groundworkcenter.org
