Annual Francisca Irwin Community Service Award recognizes volunteerism

The Essex Community Fund (ECF) at Adirondack Foundation is pleased to announce that the recipients of the 2024 Francisca Irwin Community Service Award are Kristin and Mark Kimball.

“Mark and Kristin are an integral part of our town,” said ECF Council Chair Norma Goff. “They are known and appreciated for their dedication and hard work, volunteer efforts and are an excellent choice for the Francisca Irwin award.”

The award honors Francisca “Frisky” Paine Irwin, who served as the Essex Community Fund’s first chair, and it recognizes the precedent she established for extended selfless service to benefit Essex.

As part of the award, the Kimballs will direct a $1,000 grant from the Essex Community Fund to a nonprofit of their choosing. Their names will be also added to a plaque that hangs in the Essex Town Office listing previous recipients Donna Sonnett, Sally Johnson, Ron Jackson, and Tom Duca.

Kristin and Mark came to Essex in 2003 with a vision to create a full-diet Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm. Over the past 20 years, Essex Farm has grown to hundreds of acres in size and now offers an array of vegetables, meats, dairy products, small fruits, grains, and other staples to its many members and the general public. Mark’s passion and skills and the popularity of Kristin’s books, The Dirty Life and Good Husbandry, have also attracted young people from around the world to come to Essex to learn about organic farming and rural life. Many of these people have stayed in the region, starting farms and families of their own, all of which have helped make agriculture in Essex the town’s most important economic engine and community characteristic.

Kristin and Mark are also members of the Essex Volunteer Fire Department, Kristin is a co-chair of the Essex Comprehensive Planning Committee, and they volunteer in a myriad of other ways in the community.

“The legacy of Essex Farm extends far beyond the innovative CSA that nourishes our community with diverse and nutritious foods year-round,” said James Graves, a friend, fellow farmer and ECF council member. “It includes dozens of hard-working, community-minded transplants who moved here to work at Essex Farm for a spell and then stayed in the area and enriched the life of our town. Mark and Kristin’s brilliance and contagious optimism is at the core of this agricultural and community renaissance.”

“Kristin and Mark make true the adage that the only way anything changes in the world is when one or two people take their fervent beliefs and work diligently towards their goals,” said Tom Duca, a friend and fellow fire department member. “The history of human civilization has always been shaped by such charismatic people and our local North Country community is fortunate to have the Kimballs as forces for good among us.”

The Essex Community Fund at the Adirondack Foundation was created in 2004 to provide financial support to local nonprofit organizations that provide enrichment and services to people in the town of Essex, including libraries, schools, arts organizations, health and human services providers, and public recreation projects. Since its inception, the ECF has made 245 grants totaling nearly $400,000. For more information about the Essex Community Fund, visit  adirondackfoundation.org/funds/essex-community-fund.

For more information about community funds at Adirondack Foundation, contact Leslee Mounger at leslee.mounger@adkfoundation.org or (518) 523-9904. To learn more about Adirondack Foundation, visit adirondackfoundation.org.