The Farm at Stonehill

2019 Donor Impact Report

Farm with hoop house and sunflowers
Support The Farm at Stonehill

The Farm at Stonehill is an initiative of The Mission Division at Stonehill College and is designed to enrich students' academic endeavors by providing them with the opportunity to actively engage in social justice issues while also helping provide for families and individuals in need. 

Farm Overview

Students at the Farm
Students volunteering at the Farm

The Farm was created in 2011 after the former Vice President for Mission, Paul DaPonte, was inspired through a day of service in Brockton, MA. On that day he, and the students accompanying him, learned from local community organizations about residents in the community who had limited access to healthy food and fresh produce – and a desire to help address food insecurity was born.

The Farm yields approximately 10,000 to 12,000 lbs. of fresh, organic produce each year on just 1.5 acres of land.  For the first five seasons, the entire harvest was donated to four community partners who, in turn, distribute the produce to their clients: My Brother's Keeper; The Table at Father Bill's & MainSpring; The David Jon Louison Center of The Old Colony YMCA; and The Easton Food Pantry. During this past season, we commenced weekly deliveries to a fifth community partner affiliated with Father Bill’s & MainSpring: Evelyn House. A Mobile Market was launched in 2016 in partnership with Brockton Neighborhood Health Center (BNHC) to bring fresh produce to two additional locations in Brockton. Locations for the market are chosen each season based upon BNHC’s assessment of where the need is greatest. This season our market locations were at the health center at 63 Main Street and at a Brockton Housing Authority site: 10 Kennedy Drive.  During the height of the growing season, fresh produce is distributed five days a week (Monday through Friday) via one of our community partners or the Mobile Market. 

With the help of over 500 volunteer hours each season, a full-time farm director, an assistant farm manager, several paid summer interns, and Mobile Market interns, the Farm grows over 130 different varieties of vegetables, fruits, and flowers, including popular items like potatoes, onions, greens, strawberries, basil, and sunflowers. Vegetable varieties are chosen based on nutritional value and popularity among recipients, who are surveyed each season. The Farm thrives thanks to dedicated staff and volunteers who enjoy growing community around fresh produce and funders who believe in the work that we do at the Farm.

Our Ninth Season

Farm Staff

This season, we were fortunate to hire Celia Dolan ’19 to serve as our Assistant Farm Manager. Celia brings her passion for food justice and farm education to the position, which began in February 2019. This position is funded through a gift by a donor, and Celia plays an essential role leading the crew in the fields, at The Market, and assisting Bridget with many projects including seed saving and planning for 2nd biennial Campus Farmer Summit, which will be held at Stonehill on February 22, 2020.

To date, she has saved over 4,500 seeds from 20 varieties, including tomatoes, pumpkin, peppers, and beans. She is also working with Stonehill’s librarians to create a seed library on campus to promote food access and educate about the importance of seed saving. Saving seeds promotes biodiversity and sustainability by allowing seed savers to collect, exchange, and breed seeds that are not patented, genetically modified, or owned by seed companies. Seed saving also allows for the collection of stories that accompany seeds with cultural, regional, and historical significance. Such work directly ties to The Farm’s mission by engaging in seed and food sovereignty efforts, providing sustainable, locally grown food to community members, and educating about the importance of understanding our food system and food access issues.

Deepening the Farm's Connection to Academics

This Fall, we created a Farm Advisory Council. Members include Faculty and Staff who are committed to deepening the work of the farm and sustainability on campus and in the community. Members include: Kristin Burkholder (Environmental Science), Linnea Carlson (Anthropology, Community Based Learning and Downtown Center), Nate Desrosiers (Religion), Marie Kelly (Advancement), Chris Wetzel (Sociology), and Bridget Lawrence-Meigs (Farm Director).

Campus Farming Community

Bridget continues to keep Stonehill at the forefront of creating a strong network between colleges with new or established campus farm programs in the northeast region, serving as the co-chair of the Campus Farms Steering Committee, facilitated by Farm to Institution New England (FINE). The Farm at Stonehill is partnering with FINE to co-host the 2nd Biennial Campus Farmer Summit on our campus on February 22, 2020. The 2020 summit program will focus on the theme of nourishment. Attendees from around the region will gather to consider campus farms as living organisms and enjoy opportunities to connect and learn about exciting and practical ways to nourish and be nourished by campus farms and our communities.

In The Fields

Engaging Youth at The Farm

Each summer, we look forward to welcoming youth involved in Camp Shriver (62 campers). This year the campers learned about seed saving and planted Hopi Blue Corn seeds saved from the 2018 Season during their first week of camp. During the last week of camp, they planted their healthy seedlings together at the farm.

Volunteer Groups

Members of Stonehill’s Women’s Basketball Team, the Women’s Dance Club, the Men’s Club Hockey Team, Xaverian Brothers High School, and Boston Wise joined us to help with big projects – like pulling up tomato stakes or planting the garlic—this season. We continue to host volunteers (mostly Stonehill students, some community members) every Friday during the growing season from 3 pm-5 pm.

The Veggies

This season, we grew and distributed almost 9,000 pounds of over 135 different varieties of organic produce through our community partners: My Brother’s Keeper, The Old Colony YMCA’s David Jon Louison Center, Father Bill’s & MainSpring, and The Easton Food Pantry, as well as to Evelyn House in Stoughton and our Mobile Market in partnership with the Brockton Neighborhood Health Center. The need for fresh produce remains after our growing season ends, which has sparked an interest in developing cooking classes in partnership with the Brockton Neighborhood Health Center during the winter months.

Summer Farmer Blogs

Summer farmers post guest blogs so that they can share about their experiences working at The Farm with the community.

In The Community

The Mobile Market

The Mobile Market is offered at two Brockton Neighborhood Health Center locations (our original location of 63 Main Street and a new stop at 10 Kennedy Drive). The partnership with BNHC allows us to deliver freshly picked, organic produce to residents who experience food insecurity and offer ways to grow community around healthy food choices. The Mobile Market runs from June – November, and support for additional vegetables was made possible by the Inner Spark Foundation and a donation received this fall from Project Bread.

At both sites, we serve many different residents ranging from young mothers to senior citizens, as well as less mobile populations who speak Cape Verdean Creole, Haitian Creole, and Spanish primarily. Students who work at the Mobile Market do more than just sell fresh, organic produce. They develop friendships with our clients who look forward to their smiles and assistance in picking the best veggies from the bins each week.

We believe that lasting solutions to hunger will grow from working closely with our community partners – listening and planning together as we grow community around fresh produce

The Mobile Market provides a sense of dignity to market visitors as they get to know where their food is coming from and can pick what they want to buy. There’s more than one way to make a connection with people, other than just talking to them. Food is like a universal language.

The customers get fresh produce at low prices while the students get to learn bits of new languages and about new cultures. You get to know the [customers] because they come back every week. It makes it so it’s more personal.

You get to see the people who are going to eat your food.

Farmhouse Writing Fellows: 

Students planting the farm
Farm planting

Each semester, faculty and staff are invited to participate in the Farmhouse Writing Fellows program.

Writing Fellows use the farmhouse as a designated quiet place to work on research and writing projects. Fellows then share their work during Farmhouse Conversations, which take place on Friday afternoons. These conversations attract a range of faculty, staff, and students, and offer a space for attendees to connect on interdisciplinary topics they may not have otherwise considered.             

This year’s Fellows included: 

  • James Bohn, Director of the Music Program, who discussed Disney Parks as Immersive Film Environments
  • Wanjiru Mbure, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Communications, who spoke about The Tenacious Defenders, Offenders, and Inventors of African Beauty
  • Kate Marin, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Education, who shared her work about Introducing Undergraduates to Professional Conferences
  • Eric LeFlore, Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in the Environmental Department, who talked about human-carnivore conflict in Africa

As a Living Classroom

Bridget with students
Bridget Lawrence-Meigs and students

Farm Director, Lawrence-Meigs continues to teach courses each semester that promote the teachings and learnings of the Farm at Stonehill. 

  • In Fall 2019, she taught Sustainable Agriculture, co-taught the Origin of Resources Learning Community with Professor Candice Smith Corby (Visual and Performing Arts), and taught Ecologies, Theologies and Worldviews. 
  • In the Spring of 2020, she will co-teach the Food Justice Learning Community with Prof. Chris Wetzel (Sociology). Students who take the Food Justice Learning Community with Lawrence-Meigs and Wetzel must volunteer at the Farm and participate in a community-based learning project.  

Bridget also continues to partner with faculty to offer the Farm as a living classroom. Ten classes visited the Farm during the Fall of 2019, including: Philosophy, Business, Religion, Environmental Science and Studies, Journalism, Interdisciplinary, and Visual and Performing Arts.

 

Philanthropy Supporting The Farm

Farm vegetables
Farm vegetables

To achieve the goals set forth by the Farm at Stonehill, we rely on support from Stonehill to maintain our operations, and we rely on the generosity of philanthropic benefactors to launch new projects and initiatives outside our typical farm operations. We remain grateful for the support we have received from our generous benefactors over the years.

 

In 2019 we have been the grateful recipients of the following support:

  • Securing grants from the following organizations to support the Mobile Market, the Campus Farmer Summit, and to create a video about the work of The Farm from the following organizations.
    • The Inner Spark Foundation
    • Project Bread
  • Maintaining and forging new relationships with individual donors (friends of the College and alumni benefactors):
    • An endowed fund has been created by generous individual benefactors that provides funding for The Farm and the Mobile Market.
    • A multi-year gift from an alumni contributor continues to support the seasonal farm assistant manager.
    • Generous annual donations from parents, alumni, and friends who support the Farm offer smaller commitments that, when combined, have a lasting and significant impact on our ability to serve our community.

 

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