The Farm at Stonehill

2020 Donor Impact Report

Farm Field
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

vegetables
Spring Harvest

The Farm was created in 2011 after the former Vice President for Mission, Paul DaPonte, was inspired through a day of service in our neighboring city of Brockton, MA. On that day he, and the students accompanying him, learned from local 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.  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. 

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.  A Mobile Market was launched in 2016 in partnership with Brockton Neighborhood Health Center (BNHC). 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.

Through our community partners, we serve many different residents ranging from young mothers to senior citizens, as well as less mobile populations who speak primarily Cape Verdean Creole, Haitian Creole, and Spanish.  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. 

The Farm thrives thanks to our dedicated staff and volunteers who enjoy growing community around fresh produce, our relationships with our community partners, and our funders who believe in the work that we do at the Farm.

OUR TENTH SEASON

Small is Beautiful

The 2020 growing season was different due to the challenges affiliated with COVID-19, but thanks to funding from the Vela Foundation, the Inner Spark Foundation, and gifts from alumni, parents, and friends of the College, we were able to keep Celia Dolan ’19 on as our Assistant Farm Manager and hire two students, Olivia Reed ’21 and Joseph Weber ’22. Once a week, Owen DeGraaf ’21 joined us through an internship with Griffin Greenhouse Supplies, Inc. to gain experience in the fields and in our hoop houses growing and harvesting produce.

We produced vegetables and flowers on 0.75 acres and in our hoop house, and we planted cover crops like field peas, buckwheat, spring wheat, oats, hairy vetch and winter rye to feed and protect the soil for the acreage that rested this year. Together we worked to fulfill the first part of our mission – “to make available fresh, nutritious, locally grown food to Brockton-area food pantries and meal providers” – during a time of increased need. We delivered our produce to our community partners and adjusted our Mobile Market delivery model – packing up twelve bags of produce each Wednesday that Community Health Workers distributed to BNHC patients at their location at 63 Main Street in Brockton or via home delivery.

Growing Hope and Saving Seeds

During the Spring of 2020, a number of people approached us seeking guidance for how to grow their own food. In response to this need, Celia created a “Growing Hope Guide” to help folks start a home garden. This resource, which can be found on our website, ties to the second part of our mission: “enriching Stonehill faculty and student academic and service endeavors by educating and actively engaging them in local and global food justice issues.”

During her time as our Assistant Farm Manager, Celia also worked closely with MacPháidín Library staff to create a Seed Library. Seed libraries are important because seeds are central to the vitality of a farm, are crucial for our food system to thrive, have relationships with abiotic and biotic factors in the ecosystem, and seeds also have relationships with people through a story and a living history. We are interested in saving seeds and keeping their genetic diversity and stories alive and the Seed Library will allow us to do just that!

IN THE FIELDS

The Veggies

This season, we grew and distributed almost 4,000 pounds of over 135 different varieties of organic produce – including peaches and a new variety of broccoli through our community partners: My Brother’s Keeper, The Old Colony YMCA’s David Jon Louison Center, and The Easton Food Pantry.

We were unable to run a traditional Mobile Market due to health and safety concerns affiliated with COVID-19, but we worked with Brockton Neighborhood Health Center Community Health Workers to distribute 12 bags of produce to patients facing food insecurity each week.

“While we can't put a monetary value on the food Stonehill provides, it is invaluable to us.”
- Linda, The Easton Food Pantry

“In the midst of the pandemic the fresh produce from the Farm at Stonehill is more important than ever to those facing food insecurity.”
- Beth Collins, Manager of In-House Programs at My Brother’s Keeper

Small, Sweet, & Beautiful Changes

This season we worked with farmers from Langwater Farm (Easton, MA) to re-plastic our hoop houses in early March (pre-pandemic) and early November, our bees experienced a successful season (producing over 100 pounds of honey), and we installed a Davis Instruments weather station. Now you can monitor temperatures, humidity, wind speed, rainfall, and even soil moisture by going to www.weatherlink.com, creating a free account and searching for The Farm at Stonehill.

Our Assistant Farm Manager Moves on to My Brother’s Keeper

After five years of service at the Farm as a volunteer, student, intern, and our Assistant Farm Manager, Celia Dolan ’19 has taken a position as a Direct Service Associate at My Brother’s Keeper. Please read her post about how The Farm helped to shape her Stonehill and post-grad life.

Reskinning our hoop houses – our larger hoop house, which helps us to extend our growing season, was reskinned in March 2020 and our smaller hoop house, where we start seedlings each year, was reskinned in November 2020.

AS A LIVING CLASSROOM

The Farm as a Living Classroom

Bridget Lawrence-Meigs continues to teach and host classes at The Farm. Despite COVID-19 restrictions, she hosted Introduction to Environmental Principles sections taught by Professors D’Avanzo and LeFlore and Environmental Ethic’s taught by Professor Mooney in person or via zoom. She and LeFlore created brief videos about topics like irrigation, cover crops and pest management to allow students to visit and to learn about sustainable agriculture virtually. Professor Smith Corby utilized The Farm as an outdoor studio space for Making Art Materials. In the Spring of 2021, Lawrence-Meigs will co-teach LC 204: Food Justice with Professor Chris Wetzel (Sociology), and their students will participate in projects to make Stonehill’s food system more just.

  • Learning at The Farm

    On a sunny day this fall, Bridget and Professor Eric LeFlore created 8 videos to offer all students an opportunity to learn at the farm – even if it was a virtual visit. In this shot (from one of the videos), Bridget is teaching about cover crops like Winter Rye and Hairy Vetch and how they help keep our soil healthy.

  • Weather Station

    Our new weather station is capturing data which will be utilized to help us grow healthier crops and offer students a new tool to learn about weather and climate. Now you can monitor temperatures, humidity, wind speed, rainfall, and even soil moisture by going to www.weatherlink.com, creating a free account and searching for The Farm at Stonehill.

  • Honey Extraction

    Our beekeeper, Kevin, showed us how to extract honey this year. Our honey is available for no-contact pick up at the farm.

CAMPUS FARMER NETWORK

The 2020 Campus Farmer Summit: Nourishing Farms Nourishing Students

On February 22, 2020, just before COVID-19 made its appearance, we partnered with Farm to Institution New England (FINE) to host the second New England Campus Farmer Summit in the Martin Institute and the Shields Science Center.

The day of the summit dawned sunny and bright with temperatures destined to climb into the high 40s! We were glad to know that our attendees – joining us from Virginia, Massachusetts, Washington D.C., Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New York, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and Rhode Island – would have good traveling conditions. And sure enough 165 campus farm enthusiasts made the trip to Stonehill to spend the day together. It is a magical thing having the opportunity to create a space where people with similar challenges and shared joys can come together.

• Student Panel: Student farmers, led by our Assistant Farm Manager, Celia Dolan ’19, spoke from their hearts about how their campus farming experiences have nourished them physically, mentally and socially. It was clear that eating becomes personal – joyful, painful, beautiful and meaningful – when you experience growing something from seed to table.

• Keynote Speaker: Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy at Tufts University, Julian Agyeman is the originator of the concept of just sustainabilities: “the intentional integration of social justice and environmental sustainability, defined as: the need to ensure a better quality of life for all, now, and into the future, in a just and equitable manner, whilst living within the limits of supporting ecosystems.”

Campus farms are much more than learning the hard skills of producing food. They serve as a way to connect people to the earth, bring folks together across cultures through food and history and provide a chance to address the inequalities and gaps within a sustainable food system.

  • Summer Intern

    Owen de Graaf ’21 joined us at the farm once a week this summer as part of an internship with Griffin Greenhouse Supplies, Inc.

  • New Produce

    Our peach tree produced over 35 pounds of peaches this year for the first time since it was planted 5 years ago!

  • Farm Bouquets

    Bouquets assembled from flowers grown at the Farm.

PHILANTHROPY SUPPORTING THE FARM

Farmers
Owen de Graaf '21, Bridget Lawrence-Meigs, Olivia Reed '21, Joe Weber '22

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 2020, we have been the grateful recipients of the following support:

  • Securing grants from the following organizations to support the Farm, the Mobile Market, and the 2020 Campus Farmer Summit:
    • The Inner Spark Foundation
    • The Vela Foundation
  • Maintaining and forging new relationship with individual donors including friends of the College, parents, and alumni benefactors:  
    • An endowed fund, created in 2019 by generous individual benefactors, provides funding in perpetuity for the Mobile Market and projects that increase the Farm’s footprint in the local community. 
    • Generous gifts from alumni and parent contributors continue to support a seasonal farm assistant manager. 
    • Many annual donations from alumni and friends combine to have a lasting and significant impact on our ability to serve our community.

THANK YOU to all of our partners and donors for making the good works of the
Farm at Stonehill possible! 

Learn More About the Farm at Stonehill

2019 Donor Impact Report

To learn more about The Farm's ninth season, we invite you to read the 2019 Donor Impact Report.

Features include:
• Deepening The Farm’s Connection to Academics
• Campus Farming Community
• Engaging Youth at The Farm
• Volunteer Groups
• The Mobile Market
• And more!

Learn More

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