It feels like we are at the pinnacle of summer heat and humidity, and the bulk of our spring projects have just come to a close. As we take a breath and shift gears, our last 3 months of delivering plants, shoveling dirt, and hefting buckets deserves some heartfelt celebration!
Our partnership with Windy Ridge Organics to sell low-cost seedling CSA shares that can be purchased with SNAP and HIP was once again a resounding success. We helped to educate, promote and spread the word about the program, and Windy Ridge sold all 24 shares, 10 of which were purchased with SNAP, and at least 2 of which were purchased by our raised bed recipients.
We have been building raised garden beds in Holyoke residents’ yards since 2021, and we added the bucket garden option to the program last year, in which a family can receive up to 3 5-gallon buckets that are filled with soil and planted with food-producing plants. This year, interest in the program skyrocketed, and we received around 100 applications in under a week, about half of those for the beds and half for the buckets. With the help of our extraordinary volunteers, we built 11 raised garden beds for 6 Holyoke residents and we made and distributed 97 bucket gardens to 33 residents. Recipients were chosen as objectively as possible by a system of weighting criteria, with priority given to applicants who are: on SNAP, claiming trouble accessing and/or affording food, BIPOC, renting vs. owning their house, living with 4 or more people in their house and living in wards 1-4 (historically redlined communities).
Food access is a big part of our work, but we know that it’s not enough to just hand out food. A community’s ability to produce its own food and be self-reliant is a huge part of our vision for Holyoke. Giving community members their own garden creates an immediate sense of ownership (in addition to the convenience of it being located at home) that inspires our recipients to learn the skill of growing food, and, in some cases, teach their children too. We believe that this will have a ripple effect in the community.
2024 bed recipient, Marielis recently wrote to us, “The girls love and get surprised every time they see something new grow! Thank you for giving us the opportunity to do this.”
