ST. DAVID, Maine — A family-run farm in northern Maine is now getting statewide recognition. Freckle Farm in St. David is this year’s recipient of the Maine Institute for Family-Owned Business Shep Lee Community Service Award.
The award, according to the Portland-based institute, recognizes a business of any size that demonstrates a commitment to giving back to the community, volunteerism, and employee service to the community.
The 2.4 acre farm is run by Keren and Corey Morin. The Morins and their five children mostly handle everything at the farm, and will occasionally get help from volunteers.
The farm began in 2020 as an effort to tackle food insecurity amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Keren said that her husband Corey was shocked to see empty grocery store shelves in their town in 2020. This motivated them to start the farm and prevent their neighbors in town from going hungry.
The family farm was one of 500 in the state to be nominated. That number was narrowed down to 25 semifinalists who were up for seven awards.
“It was very humbling that we were able to stand in the ranks of six other businesses,” Keren Morin said, “because we’re a small little family-owned farm.”
The farm started as a large garden, which the family grew to help hungry people in their community however they could.
“We said, “We’ll do a bigger garden, and then what we don’t eat, we’ll sell or give it to other people,” Morin said. “And it just snowballed from there.”
The farm now accepts WIC and SNAP benefits and participates in the Maine Senior Farm Share Program. The family offers their food at the Madawaska Farmers Market, an event that Keren Morin also organizes.
St. John Valley Chamber of Commerce & Tourism Executive Director Jessica Blalock said that Morin is instrumental in setting up the town’s farmers market and gathering participants and vendors.
Morin also led the effort for Madawaska to become a food-sovereign town, which allows direct exchanges between the producer and consumer without any state regulation. St. David, which is part of Madawaska and shares a zip code, is one of many Maine communities to adopt food sovereignty ordinances after Maine passed a law in 2017.
The farm doesn’t specialize in one crop, and during peak season grows close to 20 unique vegetables.
The Morins recently purchased a string bean harvester, a vibrating table and a large commercial salad spinner via grant funding.
“This year, I feel like we specialized in greens, because now we have a system that can clean and dry them, and prolong their storage and quality,” Keren Morin said.
Shallots, or “eschallots” as they’re called in the St. John Valley, are also among the farm’s most popular items. Morin said there is a particularly high demand for the mild onion vegetable in the spring, and that one family will clear an entire week and help the Morins harvest them.
“They come on the farm, we feed them the food and they help us,” she said. “It’s not a hard job, but it’s very time consuming.”
Prior to the pandemic, the Morins had planned to open a strawberry farm with the same name. Keren Morin grew up in a large family, but she and her grandmother were the only redheads. They also both loved strawberries, so her grandmother told her that freckles came from strawberries.
“She had freckles and she loved strawberries, so therefore that must be true,” Morin joked. “Because when your grandmother tells you something, you believe it.”
Blalock said this award reflects the Morin family’s dedication to helping their community.
“It goes to show that a small family farm can achieve big things, even from the top of Maine,” Blalock said. “It’s wonderful to see our members succeed in their dreams.”
