On a sunlit morning in Orlando’s Packing District, the 4Roots Farm Campus came alive as more than 100 supporters, community leaders, and partners gathered to celebrate a milestone moment for Central Florida. The gathering marked the public launch of The Next Acre Campaign: cultivating tomorrow from the ground up, along with the unveiling of updated plans for the future 4Roots Stone Barn Event Center. Among the attendees were 4Roots Board Members, Farm Founders, Mayor Buddy Dyer, Commissioner Robert Stuart, representatives from the Williams Family Foundation, community partners, and leadership from Orlando Health. Guests began the day with a nostalgic farm breakfast in the iconic barn, a tribute to the earliest gatherings that helped shape the Farm Campus, before transitioning into a morning filled with celebration, reflection, and a powerful shared vision for the future.
Throughout the event, guests received an exclusive preview of the future 4Roots Stone Barn Event Center and a look at how far the campus has come in just five years. What began as big plot of forgotten land has grown into a vibrant, transformative place where education, innovation, regenerative farming, and community all take root. Today, the Farm Campus stands not only as a demonstration of what is possible when a community rallies around food, health, and sustainability, but also as a foundation for an even more ambitious next chapter.
This moment also marked the official launch of The Next Acre Campaign, a comprehensive $110 million fundraising initiative aimed at completing the 42-acre Farm Campus and sustaining 4Roots’ mission-driven programs over the next four years. With $50 million already raised, the campaign is off to a strong start and will fuel progress across regenerative agriculture, food access, culinary medicine, education programs, workforce development, and community health. The goal is not simply to finish a campus but to build a national model for how soil health, human health, and community well-being are deeply interconnected and how food can be the catalyst for lasting change.
Adding to the morning’s momentum, 4Roots announced that Orlando Health has stepped forward as the first naming donor for the future Event Center. Together with significant support from Orange County’s Tourist Development Tax (TDT), this partnership propels one of the most impactful upcoming facilities toward construction. Slated to break ground early next year, the Event Center will become a regional destination for weddings, corporate gatherings, culinary medicine programs, educational workshops, and mission-driven community celebrations. Designed to seat 300 guests for dining and up to 500 for lectures, it will be a dynamic, flexible space where people and organizations come together around the shared belief in the power of food. Kelly Nierstedt, senior vice president of Orlando Health’s Orlando Region, shared her enthusiasm, stating that the work 4Roots is doing to expand access to healthy food, provide nutrition education, and empower individuals to take charge of their health through what they eat is remarkable, and that Orlando Health is delighted to support this exciting new venture as the Event Center’s Healthcare Partner.
The Event Center is one of several key features in the campus’s Community Engagement Phase, which also includes a Community Stage and Green and The Garden House, an innovative concept featuring a house built inside a greenhouse with learning spaces and a pop-up restaurant. These additions are designed to welcome farmers, families, educators, healthcare leaders, and visitors from across the country. As Founder and CEO John Rivers shared, this is the moment when the campus shifts from an education hub to a full community destination, and with these new facilities 4Roots will welcome even more people to learn, participate, and join the movement to create a healthier, more sustainable food system.
The Next Acre Campaign builds on major achievements already realized on campus, including last year’s award-winning 4Roots Education Center, the first Petal Certified Living Building in Florida. The Education Center does more than teach sustainability; it embodies it through regenerative systems, energy efficiency, water harvesting, and a design that models harmony between people and the natural world. With new investments and growing partnerships, including the support from Orlando Health, the Farm Campus is poised to become a national leader in regenerative agriculture, food-as-medicine innovation, and community-driven solutions to food insecurity and environmental health.
As the morning celebration concluded, one theme echoed throughout the barn: this is only the beginning. The Next Acre Campaign invites the community to help cultivate the next chapter acre by acre, program by program, life by life. With continued support, the 4Roots Farm Campus will stand as a model of what is possible when communities choose to nourish people, land, and hope in equal measure. Together, we are not just imagining a better food future — we are growing it.