Farm Honor Roll

We hope you enjoy reading about some of the lasting impacts of The Farm. If you have a story to share with us about how engaging with the farm helped you to choose your career or would like to share how working at the farm continues to influence your choices, please contact us at bmeigs@stonehill.edu.

Breanne Penkala ‘15

“The farm largely impacted me intellectually and emotionally after I stumbled upon Farm Friday volunteer hours. I then took classes like Food Politics, Sustainable Agriculture and started a Real Food chapter on campus, encouraging other students to think about how their food is produced and how we can purchase more just food at Stonehill. I am currently working at Hawthorne Valley Farm in Ghent, NY teaching young students how to grow their own food, cook, take care of animals and care for the environment.”

Christine Moodie ‘15

“The Farm at Stonehill shaped me as a student, as a leader and as an advocate for social justice. In working at The Farm for two consecutive summers and completing a Directed Study, I not only learned how to grow food sustainably, but also was made to think about food insecurity and social justice in a different way. The Farm at Stonehill influenced my decision to do a year of service with JVC Northwest in which I worked at a café managing their food justice programs including a community garden.”

Anna Tallmadge ‘15

“For me, working at The Farm at Stonehill taught me how to think. Since graduating, I have worked for two unique organizations in Sub-Saharan Africa: one in rural Tanzania, where I was building a poultry-keeping business with subsistence farmers and one in Rwanda, where I am running impact evaluations on health management interventions. Both of these disparate experiences relied heavily on systems thinking: the ability to conceptualize the different moving parts, levels, actors and ideas at play in a dynamic environment. I believe that I developed this type of thinking on the farm: a detail-driven data scientist and how to think with the big-picture in mind. It has proven to be an invaluable skill in the real world.”

Devin Ingersoll ‘14

“The Farm at Stonehill was much more than just a living classroom. The Farm brought students together to think differently, act purposefully and literally do something. After graduation, I participated in the Stonehill Service Corps, where I worked at The Farm at Stonehill managing volunteer hours and assisted with community gardens. I currently work for The Greater Boston Food Bank, which is the largest hunger-relief organization in New England, with the goal to provide at least one meal a day to every person in need while supporting healthy lives and communities.”

Sean Moran ‘13

“The farm served as a place to meet new people. There were people with different majors, in different classes and different dorms all united in serving their community and connecting in nature. The Farm at Stonehill was an opportunity to discover a true passion for farming and connect me to working a for-profit farm. It influenced my decision to work with One Acre Fund in Bungoma, Kenya. It supports smallholder farmers with agriculture techniques and trainings to maximize their profits from harvest sales.”

Lessons Learned at the Farm

Greg Szczesuil ‘14

“I found The Farm at Stonehill to be an exciting combination of experiential learning and serving a need in the local community. My time at The Farm at Stonehill bookended my International Honors Program study abroad experience because before I departed, I interned at The Farm to gain transferable skills that I could use through my travels. I now work at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in the Community Engagement Department in a program that explores STEAM with museum work. I am grateful for my time at The Farm at Stonehill for encouraging me to seek creative and meaningful activities with people that inspire experiential learning.”

Daniel Gardiner ‘14

“I was an avid volunteer at The Farm at Stonehill, but the simple outlet for volunteerism soon evolved into the incubation space for co-curricular leadership, academic exploration and eventually career-oriented engagement. My career in development and fundraising was still connected to the Farm with my role with Grants Assistant, where I worked closely on a letter that would request support for the Farm’s newest initiative, the Mobile Market. The grant investment from Project Bread now allows the Mobile Market to bring vegetables from our fields to the busy streets of Brockton neighborhoods, which lack sufficient access to fresh produce.”