Food justice organization works to bring food to Mason Square neighborhood

Dec. 3, 2020 | Carolyn Noel
carolynn@thereminder.com

In 2018, GTC created the Walnut Street Farm at 200 Walnut St. The farm includes land where fresh produce is grown along with its own farm store where residents can purchase the healthy crops at a reasonable, discounted price.
Reminder Publishing submitted photo.

SPRINGFIELD–  For many years, the Mason Square neighborhood of Springfield lacked a nearby grocery store, reliable transportation or access to fresh, locally grown food. Gardening The Community (GTC) has helped change this.

GTC is “a food justice organization engaged in youth development, urban agriculture and sustainable living to build healthy and equitable communities,” according to their website. In 2018, GTC created the Walnut Street Farm at 200 Walnut St. The farm includes land where fresh produce is grown along with its own farm store where residents can purchase the healthy crops at a reasonable, discounted price. The food is all organically-grown and pesticide-free. The Walnut Street Farm also has a farm share with a partner in Hadley – Next Barn Over – who provides them with similar high-quality fruits and vegetables.

"We are selling really, really high quality food that normally you would find at Whole Foods, but very, very discounted,” said GTC’s Program Director Ibrahim Ali. “We’re one of only a few places in Springfield where people can utilize their HIP coupons and receive this type of quality of produce at this type of price.”

GTC is a primarily youth-run organization where the workers receive a stipend and are taught principles of urban agriculture and urban sustainable living. Youth are able to develop leadership skills, learn more about food and racial justice, volunteer within their community to help neighbors and more through their work with GTC.

GTC also relies on help from a variety of donors and sponsors to continue to feed those in need.

“It helps us to not have to navigate as treacherous a road as if we were a for-profit kind of company. We’re non-profit, we work with young people. That kind of makes it a little easier for us to make the products and the store be successful,” said Ali.

One partner that works with GTC is the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation.

President of the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation Karen Voci explained, “Primarily what we do is we support grassroots organizations in very specific communities that are growing or distributing healthy local produce to low-income families.”

The organization has worked with GTC for many years. They have provided grants to GTC to help support their greenhouse, their farm store and are now supporting their volunteer program, which includes young people who intern with them.

According to Voci, since 2015 the Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare Foundation has donated $210,000 to GTC. This has given GTC the opportunity to produce over 33,000 pounds of healthy, fresh food. Last year GTC also had 821 volunteers who contributed 11,000 hours of work.

“For a small group, that’s a pretty impressive track record,” said Voci.

The pandemic has only heightened the struggles low-income families face when it comes to food instability. Over the summer, GTC offered programs that gave them the opportunity to create free produce bags for those in need. Ali highlighted how many people won’t have to think about having a lack of food, even during the pandemic. There aren’t many neighborhoods where a grocery store cannot be found.

“Many communities in Western Massachusetts have that as an option and it’s not even thought about, it’s just ubiquitous to being in that space. Being in the city of Springfield, particularly in a neighborhood like ours that has seen so much disinvestment and the impact of structural racism, things that have happened in the national economy over the last 30-40 years, there’s a lot of things that need to be changed. The diet of our young people and our elders is crucial,” he said. “Food is important to our survival. So quality food becomes that much more important in a community like ours that are suffering from certain diseases that can be modified or changed or controlled with a proper diet.”

During the pandemic, GTC has started offering online grocery shopping as well. Customers are able to purchase pre-packaged grocery bags or customize their own order to then easily pick up.
Voci voiced the importance of supporting organizations like GTC further during this time.

“For us, because of where we started back 15 years ago we’ve kind of gotten to know these places. People there are incredibly hard-working, but don’t have access to the resources that people in more suburban, affluent communities have. And so what we’ve been trying to do is support local efforts to create, in a sense, alternative structures to get healthy foods to families,” she said.

GTC’s Walnut Street Farm Store is open Wednesday and Thursday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Those interested in learning more about the organization or donating to support their efforts are encouraged to visit http://www.gardeningthecommunity.org/.

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