When Timi Bauscher heard that a fellow farmer was in jeopardy of having to euthanize his chicken flock because his usually steady stream of egg buyers had dried up, she committed to a new business plan on the spot. “I just kind of blurted out, ‘Well, we can sell them,'” recalls Bauscher, who runs the Nesting Box Farm Market and Creamery in Kempton, Berks County, with her husband, Keith. She didn't know how she was going to do it, she just knew she had to do it. The benefit was twofold: getting a protein-rich food into the homes and refrigerators of community members who might be struggling financially, while simultaneously rescuing a farmer's flock. “Farmers are always trying to reach out and do the right thing,” she says.
Bauscher put up a post on Facebook, announcing her intentions to sell the eggs for $2 a dozen (five dozen minimum) at her farm. “Everyone was at home, anyway, scrolling on their phones,” she says. “It went viral in minutes.” Turnout was so overwhelming that first weekend there was a line of waiting cars that stretched for two-and-a-half miles. That prompted Bauscher to move the drop-off to the more spacious Kempton Community Center; her faithful flock of egg buyers followed. “We get about 600 cars with each drive,” says Bauscher. And they came not just from the immediate area, but from an hour or longer away—Philadelphia, South Jersey, the Poconos. In just four weeks' time, Bauscher says they sold about 90,000 dozen eggs. Do the math—that's well over a million eggs.
Bauscher hopes the on-the-fly operation inspires more community fellowship, particularly during bleak times like the COVID-19 pandemic. “No one has lived through this before,” she says. “It's just re-establishing knowing your neighbor, and helping your neighbor.”
