By Patti Eldridge, Victor
If you’re tired of the politics of division and fear and anger, I urge you to vote for Laura Garber, an Independent candidate for State Senate District 43. I have known her for several years and she is wonderfully energetic, organized, and clear-thinking, and deeply committed to trying to create a world that works for everyone.
She is a proven local leader and innovator, as well as a small-business person and job creator. She and her husband Henry own and operate Homestead Organic Farm south of Hamilton. She led the effort to create a cooperative marketing group called Loyal to Local that includes about a dozen small-scale agricultural producers in the Bitterroot and around Montana. She was instrumental in building a state-certified poultry-processing facility at their farm, again as a cooperative, that has made family poultry farming more viable in our area.
As part of her interest in education, she created Cultivating Connections, a non-profit program that brings youth groups such as Heartism (an autism support group), the Linda Massa Youth Home, YWCA GUTS, and
Kinder-Gardeners to the farm, to learn and to do. An important part of Cultivating Connections is the 4-6 high school students that work, for pay, as Farm Interns each summer. They learn about vegetable and poultry farming, and they harvest, prepare, and serve fresh salads to Meals on Wheels seniors weekly. Just another example of the positive, community-building things that Laura likes to do and is good at.
Please vote for Laura. She will bring a fresh, constructive, balanced voice to our state legislature.