There’s hope!
COVID 2020 – a year of pandemic, illness and isolation. We all learned about social distancing, working from home, and how to make sourdough bread. We clocked hundreds of hours on Zoom for professional meetings and family gatherings.
Lots of us dusted off our sewing machines and made face masks. Our hearts broke as we learned about the hundreds of thousands brought down by the coronavirus. Businesses shuttered, and schools closed, and opened and closed again. Home-schooling was redefined.
Vaccines are on their way, but it appears distribution may take many months, and lots of political haggling.
It was in this chaotic context that Tessa Ingham purchased the local natural foods store, changed its name to Wildfour Market and set to work for the health of her community – Amery, Wisconsin, population 2,902. 
Wildflour joins the steadily growing movement of agriculturally-based businesses in this small city just 70 miles east of the Minneapolis/St.Paul, Minnesota metro area. In the last 10 years, numbers of organic farmers have moved to the area to grow and market produce, meats, eggs, artisanal cheeses, mushrooms, fleece and fibers, and certified organic herbs and medicinal herb products. The Amery area is also home to farm-to-table restaurant, microbrews, wineries, coffee roasters and distilleries using many locally-grown ingredients.
I hope you enjoy this Deep Roots Radio interview with Tessa Ingham about hope and imagination, investment and grit in the time of COVID.
