(File Photo/The Daily Illini)
Sola Gratia Farm is hosting a “Walktails & Open House” event July 12, from 3 to 5 p.m..
The event “combines the activity of walking with the enjoyment of drinking mocktails,” according to an announcement on the farm’s social media. No registration in advance is necessary.
The walk starts at Sola Gratia’s location on South Philo Road in Urbana, and will feature craft mocktails for purchase created by Heidi Leuszler of Berries & Flour. Berries & Flour is a Champaign-based kitchen that produces baked goods, jams, teas, syrups and shrubs using local ingredients.
Once underway, the walk will continue through the urban farm down the extension of E Mumford Drive where the farm’s new location is. The walk is a chance to check out the organization’s “brand new production fields and farm building,” according to the announcement.
This growing season is the first year that Sola Gratia is officially operating from its new farm location, though it has leased some of the land in the past. Last year, the nonprofit received a $750,000 loan to pay for the construction of its new farm building after a successful fundraising effort helped pay for the purchase of 29 additional acres to the east of its original location adjacent to St. Matthew Lutheran Church, according to the News-Gazette.
The original site has since been repurposed as a “Community Classroom” which focuses on educational opportunities surrounding gardening, produce and local food.
Sola Gratia began operating in 2012 as a joint effort between St. Matthew Lutheran Church and Faith in Place — a Chicago-based nonprofit centered around bringing people of diverse faiths and spiritualities together “to create healthy, just and sustainable communities,” according to its website.