South Side Community Action Network

Take care of you

The Columbus Foundation Appoints Director to Lead Community Health Grantmaking | The Columbus Foundation The Columbus Foundation has announced that Cheryl Graffagnino, an experienced nonprofit and public sector professional with extensive expertise in community health systems and grantmaking strategies, has joined the organization as the Director of Community Health Grantmaking.

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In 1979, a group of 130 farmers and consumers came together around the shared values of keeping family farms healthy and improving access to locally grown food. They founded a new organization to further these goals: Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association (OEFFA). This action marked the start of the annual OEFFA conference, bringing together farmers, eaters, and advocates in community and learning.

In many ways, the conference is synonymous with OEFFA. The conference has changed greatly in the past 46 years, just as OEFFA as an organization has grown and evolved.

2025 was a tough year for OEFFA and for many in our community. Costs of farming have skyrocketed, and supportive funding and other resources have become scarce, making it increasingly difficult to make a stable living as a farmer. Similarly, OEFFA lost a significant portion of funding while the costs of hosting an event like conference have increased dramatically. To keep the conference in its most recent format would have necessitated a substantial price increase for registration, meals, and other fees.

Staying together is an important part of facing challenges, and the 2026 OEFFA Conference: Finding Common Ground is still happening! We hope you will join us in February for a smaller, shorter, and more intimate conference. It will still provide the learning and community components we know and appreciate, but in a more focused and affordable format. Registration will open in early January and be limited to 200 attendees due to space limitations.

Learn more about this decision at news.oeffa.org/2025/12/19/2026conferencechanges. Thank you for your loyal partnership with OEFFA and the community we serve! 💚