“I love to grow my own vegetables every year but it's so expensive to do so. When I have a garden I can eat what I can and all extra goes to friends and family! That's the fun in gardening - it’s the sharing later!! Thank you so much for doing this program!!”
Gardening is a beautiful way to not only grow food and contribute to your own food sovereignty, but to connect with nature and cultivate personal wellbeing on many levels.
And FEED Kearsarge partners believe it’s a powerful way to build community, too.
FEED (Food Expansion, Education, Distribution) Kearsarge is a shared partnership that was co-created in response to COVID in the spring of 2020. The guiding mission is to increase food sovereignty and community connection in the Kearsarge and surrounding area of New Hampshire. Looking for a way to help, the partners decided that helping people grow their own gardens was an impactful way to join together and create resilience in a time of crisis.
“Our neighbors 8 month old was just diagnosed with cancer 2 days ago. She will not have time to grow a garden and finances will be hard. I would like to provide as much fresh healthy produce as I can to support them in their time of need.”
The reality is, gardening can be expensive, time consuming, and challenging, especially at the beginning when you are just getting started. This makes it inaccessible to many neighbors who don’t have the time or money to get their gardening dreams to take root. With a little help at the outset, folks can get major returns on a small home garden in the form of beautiful and delicious produce!
That’s the impetus behind the Tray it Forward program. It’s designed to help more community members, specifically neighbors in need, start home gardens with the help of donated seedlings and supplies, with ongoing outreach and educational support.
“I participated last year and provided produce and herbs bouquets on a weekly basis to 9 families in my neighborhood.”
Tray it Forward is a unique program created by FEED Kearsarge Partners where community-supported seedling trays (in a pay it forward fashion) grown on Spring Ledge Farm make their way into the community, along with supplies like compost and an informational gardening guide to make the growing season more successful.
“Thank you so much for offering this again. Last year I grew wonderful veggies and herbs in containers and sent up my gratitude with every delicious bite! Please know that you provide a comforting presence to all of us in need of that extra layer of kindness and dependability that good neighbors are known for.”
Volunteers help deliver trays to families in need on Tray Delivery Day, May 26th 2021.
In the spring of 2021, the second annual Tray it Forward program produced 375 seedling trays containing 7,824 plants that made their way to families in need and community garden sites in 12+ local towns with the help of over 50 volunteers. There was a large garden tray for a backyard garden and a small tray option for folks with more limited space.
And it's more than just numbers. It's real impact.
“I had so much success last year! My son loved gardening with me and eating all of the fresh produce we harvested.”
“We are planting this for our local food shelf which my husband runs. Thanks so much!”
“Last years tray was Amazing, best success with a garden to date!”
“So excited! I did this last year and had so many veggies!”
“This is WONDERFUL!!”
In the wake of COVID, we've all been searching for ways to build community resilience. According to Kearsarge Food Hub board chair Leon Malan, community resilience can look like:
"…a local farm using their time, resources and efforts to plant over 300 trays of vegetable seedlings. It is a food hub using their resources to organize and promote the event. It is a neighborhood organization using volunteers to empower people. It is dozens of committed individuals volunteering their time to bag compost, deliver trays of seedlings, organize communication materials and asking “how can I help.” It is a coalition of community organizations – hospitals, food pantries, colleges, churches, food markets…… all committing their resources to solve a local issue (food sovereignty in this case).”
That is what FEED Kearsarge is all about.
Thank you to everyone who joined together for this worthy cause of generating connection, excitement, and food through home and community gardens. Special thanks to the community members that sponsored the trays with their donations, to Vermont Compost for supplying the compost, and the Contoocook Carry Community Fund for donating 25 large containers to help neighbors test out growing on their porch.
It’s the small moments of seeing each other and helping one another add up to make a big impact. This is how we build trust, and trust is what makes a community truly resilient.
We look forward to following up with the folks who received this year’s trays, hearing their stories, and sharing them with you. Stay tuned!