Valley to Shore was born out of a desire to see more locally grown food from the Fraser Valley available on the North Shore.

Dana Dykema has lived in Lynn Valley for 15 years. A home cook and home maker, her duty is to provide her family with nutrient dense meals and fill those tummies with good food to grow strong bodies. She has 4 children and has been married to her beau for 17 years.

In May 2021 through an Instagram story, she was connected to a farm in Chilliwack called Local Harvest. The farm offers an online gardening course and upon meeting the compost farmer in the course she signed up to learn all she could about growing her own food. A few weeks later she met Farmer Dan, the owner and operator of his family run 25 acre farm.

After numerous trips to the farm over the following months she discovered the farm offered a weekly box of seasonal food called a Harvest Box. This was the perfect vessel to bring to the people of the North Shore; thus began Valley to Shore.

Her passion is connecting her community with this abundant farm which employs regenerative agriculture practices as well as being a bridge for folks wanting to learn the skills to grow their own food in the Local Harvest Gardening Course.

Food security, knowing where your food comes from and supporting this local farm are what drives her.

Soil restoration has been a big take away for Dana and she has connected with Andrew Couzens who has brought Terra Flora Soil to life. Using artisanal worm castings and natural soil amendment methods Andrew is able to share his line up of fertilizers and soil/mulching options with all of us.

After spending two decades in software engineering, Andrew Couzens eventually arrived at the conclusion that his talents would be better spent working with nature in the physical, real world, than furthering the development of the digital one which has been demonstrated to disconnect individuals from nature in spite of never being more connected.

There’s never been a greater need for people to produce sustainable solutions to manage our footprint on this planet, and the need to re-localize food production has reached a climax

We are looking forward to talking about Harvest Boxes, seasonal eating and growing your own food at the Bare Refillery on March 29th 6:30-8:30pm!