09/28/2026
I owe you all a little update - and an apology for how quiet things have been around here lately.
As some of you know, Homestead Indiana isn’t my full-time job. I’m a full-time career firefighter and also serve as a captain with a volunteer fire department. This time of year is especially busy for us, and between training, the normal workload, emergency runs, and building a new station operations system for one of my departments, I’ve struggled to find the balance I normally try to maintain with Homestead Indiana.
But I want to make one thing very clear: my passion for Homestead Indiana and its future hasn’t changed.
We’re coming up on our ONE YEAR anniversary, which is honestly a little hard for me to believe. In less than a year, this little idea has grown into a community of more than 9,500 people - completely organically.
This didn’t happen because of me alone.
It happened because you shared our posts. You tagged Homestead Indiana when someone was looking for local eggs, bread, produce, honey, flowers, meat, handmade goods, or a farm stand nearby. You told your friends about the map. You sent me stands that needed to be added. You encouraged small producers to get listed. You visited these little roadside stands and porch pickups and supported the families behind them.
You have helped carry this mission farther than I ever could have on my own, and I truly appreciate every single person who has helped propel Homestead Indiana forward.
With the limited time I have available right now, I also want to make sure the time I do spend creating content is actually useful to you.
So I’d love your input:
If you’re a merchant: What content from Homestead Indiana is the most valuable to you? What would you like to see more of?
If you’re a shopper: What do you find most useful? New stand announcements? Farm stand trails? Featured stands? Seasonal product guides? Trip ideas? Educational posts? Something completely different?
Tell me in the comments. I genuinely want to know where you think my time should be best spent.
There’s also something much bigger happening behind the scenes.
For the past year, I’ve been working with a developer to build a nationwide farm stand discovery app. The goal is to take so much of what we’ve learned through building Homestead Indiana and turn it into an incredibly useful tool for both the people selling local goods and the people trying to find them.
We understand there seems to be a rise in the number of farm stand finders and directories available, and I want to be clear about something: we encourage you to use any and all of them if they help you find and support local producers.
This was never about being the only map.
The bigger mission has always been getting more people to shop small, buy local, discover the stand down the road they never knew existed, and put their dollars directly into the hands of the families producing these goods.
We believe the system we’re building can be an exceptional tool for doing exactly that, including robust tools for merchants.
It has taken considerably longer to develop than I originally anticipated, in large part because every dollar invested into this project so far has come out of my own pocket. We’re now looking at approximately $2,500 to get the app across the finish line and live.
I want to be very clear that this post is not a plea for funding. Homestead Indiana will continue regardless. But because so many of you have asked how you can help support what we’re doing, I also don't want to pretend there isn't a very real cost behind building it.
If anyone wants to contribute toward getting the app launched, any donation - no matter the amount - would be accepted with an incredible amount of gratitude.
And if donating isn't something you can or want to do, please don't underestimate how much you've already helped us.
So while our social media pages may have been a little quieter lately, Homestead Indiana isn't going anywhere. There is still so much I want to do, so many small Indiana businesses I want people to discover, and so much room for this community to grow.
Thank you for giving me a little grace during the busy seasons of life. Thank you for continuing to use and share the map even when I'm not posting every day. And most importantly, thank you for believing in this mission.
9,500+ of you. Almost one year. And entirely grassroots.
That's pretty incredible.
