Until March 13, 2020, I was running Hoff Communications, Inc., a web and print design business from a commercial office building on Lansdowne Avenue, the main street in the heart of Lansdowne, Pennsylvania. Positioned just outside the southwestern border of of Philadelphia, the borough of Lansdowne (population approx. 11,000) is a compact, 1.1-square mile inner ring suburb that I am proud to call my home. In Lansdowne, neighbors are really neighborly, and I can walk to all four corners of our borough easily.
But enough about my love for Lansdowne.
Immediately, the pandemic changed our way of business – and life. Suddenly I had an empty office building, as my design firm staff went home to work. Enter my adult son, Zachary, who had always loved to grow things, and had spent several summers working on a farm. He mentioned hydroponic growing and pretty quickly, I thought it was a good idea for my empty building.
Zach and I both have a really big interest in doing our part to make sure people have access to high quality food, no matter where you live. The amazing thing is that retrofitting the office to grow food has been pretty easy. Cubicles came down, and NFT and Ebb & Flow systems went up in their place, replacing workstations with grow systems in the same office environment.
Bringing the farm to the business district means that food can be produced and sold in the same small walkable neighborhood downtown. Our dream is to get fresh lettuce to end users on the same day it is harvested. You deserve fresh food, and Zach and I want to do a small part in making it more accessible.
