River Market Community Co-op is proud to announce our 2026 Growers, Grazers, Makers, and Bakers recipients: Hollyhock Land & Livestock and Sound of Rain Store! Hollyhock Land & Livestock will use their funds to construct a caterpillar tunnel, providing semi-permanent shelter for late-winter and fall kidding while supporting bale grazing practices that build pasture fertility and soil health. Sound of Rain Store will invest in weed management tools and systems to increase crop yields and expand production of the culturally significant vegetables that have become a cornerstone of their work at farmers markets and with wholesale partners. 

Bee Lutz From Hollyhock Land & Livestock

Hollyhock Land & Livestock practices regenerative, adaptive, management-intensive grazing to promote biodiverse pastures and woodlands with a herd of goats. The farm believes in humane, low-stress handling and rearing throughout all stages of production. Over the past four years, their herd has serviced 118 unique acres through targeted grazing for ecological restoration, working with private and public landowners to meet a wide range of land management needs.

Raising and selling goats for meat is a growing part of Hollyhock’s work—direct-marketed, sold to partner farms, and offered on-farm harvest. In recent years, tradition and culture have become central to this enterprise, honoring the ancestral traditions of goatherds and expanding access to high-quality meat for SWANA and Latino communities throughout the region. Aligning availability with cultural holidays, holy days, and other meaningful moments is a guiding priority.

The new caterpillar tunnel will create a sheltered space for does to give birth and rear kids in late winter and fall, seasons that were previously too exposed for kidding. Its moveable design also supports bale grazing in winter and can be shared with vegetable and floral growers during the growing season—ensuring it’s put to use year-round. 

Shouana Yang & Khue Yang From Sound of Rain Store

The farmer behind Sound of Rain Store farm grew up farming in Laos, and she brought that deep relationship with the land with her to Minnesota. Her husband Khue assists part-time on the farm. She launched the business five years ago on a single leased acre and now tends 4.75 acres leased from Manitou Foundation, adjacent to Big River Farms. 2026 marks her fifth year as a farming business in Minnesota.

Sound of Rain grows Hmong cultural vegetables, African cultural vegetables, and some Western varieties, selling at two farmers markets and wholesale to The Good Acre and The Food Group. While not organically certified, the farm uses organic practices throughout. A long-held dream is to one day own farmland of her own.

This year’s project focuses on weed management tools and systems to increase yields on crops like carrots, better meet market demand, and grow wholesale sales of storage crops—moving Sound of Rain closer to the stability and scale she’s been steadily working toward.