Chamber’s First Friday features Lettuce Dream
Representatives from Lettuce Dream, a local group seeking to create a commercial hydroponic greenhouse operation that would provide vocational training for people with cognitive and developmental disabilities, provided an update on fundraising efforts last week during the First Friday coffee hosted by the Greater Maryville Chamber of Commerce.
Lettuce Dream board members Diane Francis and Wayne Pierson told chamber members the organization is continuing to raise funds for phase one of the project, which would include construction of two greenhouses and an operations building on donated land near the intersection of East First Street and the Highway 71 bypass.
Cost of that initial installation is estimated at $386,000. Also on the drawing board is a $241,000 phase-two expansion that would embrace two additional greenhouses.
A third phase, the estimated cost of which has yet to be determined, would embrace office and warehouse space
Francis and Pierson told the group that 90 percent of developmentally and cognitively disable adults lack jobs, often because they do not have appropriate opportunities for vocational training after leaving high school.
Lettuce Dream’s stated goal is provide such opportunities locally by providing “a training and learning atmosphere” in which clients can “build job skills and experience.”
Francis and Pierson also said growing interest in locally produced foods means that grocery stores, restaurants and institutional dining operations across the region will provide an ample market for produce grown at the proposed Lettuce Dream complex.
Both added that the success of Lettuce Dream’s initial capital campaign is essential in order to move the project forward, and noted that the organization has been registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, meaning that donations are tax deductible.
The capital campaign is being co-chaired by Dick VanVactor and Carol Tjeerdsma. Francis and Pierson serve as president and vice president of the group’s board of directors, a body that also includes Diann Schieber, treasurer, and Jennie Bolyard, secretary.
