3 PillarZ Farm

We are excited to be participating in today’s Agri-fun Day at the North East High School from 10am-2pm. Come see us and talk to folks about local agriculture and so much more!!!

Word!

🌱 While most are still asleep, farmers are already out caring, feeding, and building something meaningful. Every bite you enjoy has a story that started before sunrise.🌱



https://links.regenerativesuccess.online/sp/c9118ace66a

Another great day on the farm with the next generation! 3PF welcomed Mercyhurst University Biology students to learn about regenerative agriculture’s benefit in building soil health. Huge thanks to Russ Wilson and Dan Stroup for sharing their applied wisdom…NWPA has some RA rock stars, and the sky’s the limit for what we can do together to spread the good word! 🤠🧠💪

Truth! 🤠❤️

In Pennsylvania, moving away is basically a phase. You head to Florida for the sunshine or Texas for the space, tell everyone you’re “never dealing with winter again,” and spend a few years pretending humidity or 110-degree heat is somehow better. Then it happens. You miss real seasons, good bread, back roads with character, and people who know how to shovel a driveway without making a big deal out of it. You start craving Sheetz or Wawa, complain that nobody down there understands potholes as a lifestyle, and suddenly you’re back home talking about how Pennsylvania “just feels right.” Everyone leaves, but almost everyone comes back. It’s like gravity, but with pierogies.

As we say goodbye to 2025 and hello to a new year of possibilities, the sun breaking through this snowy Jan 1 on the farm is that sign of hope despite the many challenges…best wishes to all for a happy and healthy 2026! (…and stay tuned!) 🤠

In the decades since John F. Kennedy launched a program in 1961 to help alleviate the shocking poverty he witnessed campaigning across Appalachia, the federal government has poured more than $3.6 billion into trying to ease the hardship in McDowell County.

It hasn’t worked.

Here in the heart of America’s War on Poverty, some two-thirds of households with children still get food stamps, among the nation’s highest rates, and the estimated median household income hovers around $35,000.

Nonfarm employment has plummeted 78% since 1975, according to data compiled by West Virginia University economist John Deskins, as the coal that once powered this rugged place is now mostly mined with machines, if at all, and no other industry has replaced it.

The county has lost 67% of its residents over those years, the largest drop in West Virginia, its population dwindling from just over 51,000 to roughly 17,000.

With little faith left in government to break the cycle of poverty, those who remain say it’s up to them to forge a brighter economic path.

Read more: 🔗 https://on.wsj.com/3Y2AmhD