How Hemp Can Help Archives

The quarter-century mark, 2025, looms large, but that doesn’t mean we’re slowing down here at Sunset Lake CBD. We still have plenty of lovely gifts to ship out to y’all.

However, we do find it nice to reflect not only on all the great feedback we’ve had this year from our awesome customers but also on some of the initiatives we were able to support this year.

Without further adieu, let’s recap our charitable contributions from this past year.

Last Prisoner Project – $7,192.86

We teamed up with the Last Prisoner Project again this year during our 4/20 sale. As a farm that grows and makes money in the hemp and cannabis space, it still frustrates us that people are behind bars for cannabis offenses. (C’mon Joe, start commuting sentences en masse.)

As a nonprofit, the Last Prisoner Project runs so many programs that we appreciate, the biggest being direct commissary support and post-release grants for folks who are unjustly imprisoned for cannabis use.

Check out this organization and consider donating during our checkout process. This year, we added a round-up feature that allows you to round up your purchase to the nearest dollar. All proceeds from this tool go directly to LPP! We’ve raised $2,192.86 since late August because of your roundups!

RAR Champlain Valley – $415

RAR stands for Radical Adventure Riders and is near and dear to our Director of Operations, Kelly! The organization organizes bike rides, backpacking trips, and community-building for femme, trans, women, and non-binary (FTWNB) folks.

When she asked us for a donation to help support her local chapter of RAR, we enthusiastically said yes. Our donation helped support ongoing programming and helped purchase some supplies for the local chapter.

Green Up Vermont – $3,000

Let us fill you in if you’re unfamiliar with Vermont’s special environmental holiday. Green Up Day is held on the first Saturday in May and is administered by Green Up Vermont. It’s a weekend holiday that you spend picking up trash and beautifying your neighborhood.

Great, huh?

That’s why this year, we donated to the Green Up Vermont and became one of the holiday’s official sponsors. Not only did we get our logo on the official Green Up trash bags, but we also cleaned the heck out of our farm and surrounding community.

UNRWA – $1,000

UNRWA stands for United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

This year, with help from our friends at The Majority Report, we donated $5 from each sale made during election night to UNRWA’s Gaza Emergency Appeal and Lebanon’s Emergency Appeal. Our donation went towards getting necessities into the hands of displaced Palestinian and Lebanese families.

Politics aside, we believe that what’s happening in Palestine, Lebanon, and now Syria is wrong, and we feel it’s our duty both as individuals and as a company to do whatever we can to staunch the suffering.

Vermont Foodbank – $2,500

We didn’t tie in a donation to our Black Friday sale this year.

Instead, we cut a check to Vermont Foodbank. It’s our home state of Vermont’s largest hunger relief organization and the only food bank providing food through a network of more than 300 community partners.

Yes, we could’ve purchased a stockpile of nonperishable items and donated them to our local food shelf, but the Vermont Foodbank can stretch that money further and help the 40% of neighbors who experienced food insecurity last year.

Vermont Public Radio – $16,680

We’re staying local with this next donation. Equitable access to information, news, and weather is incredibly important. All of the native Vermonters who now work here at Sunset Lake CBD grew up listening to Vermont public radio. Our parents listened and donated, and now we’re able to listen to donate.

VPR provides great local coverage that most Vermonters can access for free. We couldn’t be happier being an underwriter once again.

We find ourselves on the eve of a new year, which means we finally have a few days off here at Sunset Lake CBD!

I can’t help but reflect on some of our charitable work this year and how much it means to me that we get to support causes that we, as a crew, believe in and can do so loudly and proudly.

This year certainly threw us a curveball. You can read why here. (Hint: The USDA didn’t allow us to grow any hemp!) But don’t worry; we’re going to weather this storm with our excellent team and work our butts off to provide you with only the best CBD products.

Without further adieu, let’s recap our charitable contributions from this past year.

Vermont Community Foundation – $5,000

Let’s start with a donation that is near and dear to us as Vermont farmers. Some may know this already, but Vermont was devastated by widespread flooding in early July 2023. The images from this flood are heartwrenching and triggering for many of us who lived through Superstorm Sandy in the early 2010s.

We knew we had to do something to help our neighbors. We scraped together $5,000 during our farming season for the Vermont Community Foundation’sFoundation’s Emergency Flood Relief Fund.

You can read more about the fund here and learn more about Vermont’s ongoing recovery efforts here.

Vermont Public Radio – $16,600

We’re staying local with this next donation. Equitable access to information, news, (and weather) is incredibly important. All of the native Vermonters who now work here at Sunset Lake CBD grew up listening to VPR. Now that we have the means, we’re pleased to be able to donate to our local public radio.

VPR provides great local coverage that most Vermonters can access for free. We couldn’t be happier being an underwriter once again. We plan on continuing to donate to VPR next year, too.

Planned Parenthood – $5,000

During our Black Friday sale, we partner with other organizations to raise money for causes we both believe in. This year, we chose to make matching donations to Planned Parenthood with our friends at Majority Report.

Our donation to Planned Parenthood of America was perhaps our most controversial donation to date, but we have no regrets. Reproductive healthcare is healthcare, and healthcare is a human right.

Last Prisoner Project – $5,500

We teamed up with the Last Prisoner Project for our 4/20 sale this year. As a farm that grows hemp and operates in the cannabis space, it’s unthinkable that there are people still behind bars for cannabis offenses.

As a nonprofit, Last Prisoner Project runs so many programs that we appreciate, the biggest, in this writer’s mind, being direct commissary support and post-release grants for folks who we think are unjustly imprisoned for cannabis.

Check out this organization. If you like and want to support its mission, consider donating to the Last Prisoner Project here.

ATU Local 689 – $1,000

Early in 2023, we heard about striking transit workers in the VA and D.C. area. After hearing the details, Sunset Lake CBD decided to send $1,000 to ATU Local 689’s strike fund.

We are ardent believers in workers’ rights, and this was just one of many labor demonstrations we wanted to support this past year.

Pride Center of VT – $600

This year, the town of Essex asked Sunset Lake CBD to help sponsor their very first pride festival. We were honored to be a part of the celebration. While we didn’t bring any products because we try not to advertise our cannabis hemp products in front of children, it was lovely to talk to parents and friends.

We hope that Essex Pride invites us back for their 2024 celebration.

National Eating Disorder Association – $250

The last donation to round out this list is a small in-kind donation to our local National Eating Disorder Association branch. It aligns differently from our past donations, but we’re always happy to help out local folks.

If you run a Vermont nonprofit and are looking for in-kind donations, please use our contact form here. Send us a message with “donation” in the title.

Signed,

T.J. Anania

Director of eCommerce