For the Mortgage Lifter Challenge, teams compete for exciting prizes while helping us build towards a better future at Lost Creek Farm. Each team is named for one of our favorite heirloom tomatoes in our garden. We’re proud to welcome The Bloody Butchers to our lineup for the 2025 Mortgage Lifter Challenge! Click below to chip in and help them win!

About the Mortgage Lifter Challenge

At Lost Creek Farm, we live for West Virginia food with a story behind it. Here’s a tale we adore about one of our favorite tomatoes. In the 1930s, a backyard gardener in Logan County developed a big, sweet, reddish-pink tomato with superior flavor. M.C. “Charlie” Byles –– by trade, a mechanic who repaired coal-truck radiators –– sold starter plants for this new variety, which were immediately in high demand. He was so successful that he quickly paid for his new house from plant sales alone. This juicy, now-famous, heirloom slicer became known around the world as Radiator Charlie’s Mortgage Lifter Tomato.  

Since we’re currently building some very necessary (but very expensive) facilities at the farm, we drew inspiration from Mr. Byles and his cherished tomatoes to launch a fun new crowdfunding competition to support our ongoing construction efforts: The 2025 Mortgage Lifter Challenge! By helping us pay down our sky-high construction costs (or shall we say…lift our mortgage), we’ll give stability to ourselves and our hardworking staff, lend more support to local farmers, and more effectively prioritize the community work that’s at the heart of Lost Creek Farm.

Thank you so much for your support!