Tray it Forward Survey Results & Impact Report

Tray it Forward is a project that began in the spring of 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic as a way to help folks grow their own food and connect around gardening. It’s a community-supported, multi-stakeholder initiative that sends free seedlings out to home and community garden sites throughout the greater Kearsarge Region of central New Hampshire.

This year, in celebration of the 5th annual Tray it Forward, the team spent some time reviewing the project to understand how it’s going for folks out in the community and how to improve moving forward.

We’re grateful to the participants who took the time to share about their experiences in our recent survey and who met with our summer Intern Jamie, inviting him to see their home gardens and talking about how the project has been going for them at home.

We are excited to share those results with you here as well as impact report from Tray it Forward 2024!

Celebrating Indigenous Peoples' Day: The Seeds of Community Resilience!

As we observe Indigenous Peoples Day, we share our deepest gratitude to the Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation and their generous efforts sharing Indigenous heritage and knowledge with the community. Through the Abenaki Trails Project, they provide meaningful opportunities to reflect on the rich heritage of Indigenous culture, particularly in relation to regenerative agricultural practices.

Kearsarge Food Hub is honored and enriched by the opportunity to partner with the Abenaki Trails Project and others in the Abenaki Seeds Project, a shared community initiative that distributes heritage Three Sisters seeds to home gardeners, while also ensuring that the harvest is shared with the Abenaki Helping Abenaki Food Pantry.

This initiative not only preserves Indigenous culture but also fosters community resilience and food security!

In 2024, the Abenaki Seeds Project distributed 2,893 seeds to 55 home growers and community gardening initiatives in 33 towns across New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts. As we are still amidst the harvest season, total numbers for the harvest back to the pantry have yet to be tallied.

The benefits of this project are many, but here are four that we’d like to highlight this Indigenous People’s Day!

Preserving Indigenous Heritage Seeds

Photo of a harvest of Rose Flint Corn, provided by Abenaki Seeds Project participant.

Indigenous heritage seeds hold a wealth of history, knowledge, and biodiversity. These seeds, having grown here in the New England climate year after year, promote a special kind of biodiversity that is specific to the local ecosystems of the region. By redistributing these seeds, the Abenaki Seeds Project plays a vital role in conserving unique plant varieties that have been cultivated for generations. These seeds not only help preserve the heritage of the Abenaki community, but will be increasingly important for local food security in the face of climate change as they continue to adapt to the conditions of this region.

Empowering Home Gardeners

Photo of a home garden growing corn, beans and squash. Provided by Abenaki Seeds Project Participant.

Distributing Indigenous seeds to home gardeners encourages neighbors to connect with the land and the Indigenous roots of the local area, in this case the greater Kearsarge Region. It empowers participants to learn about growing Three Sisters plants - corn, beans, and squash - alongside a community of people learning and growing together. This hands-on approach allows gardeners to learn about Indigenous farming practices and the rich traditions embedded in these seeds that emphasize sustainability, reciprocity, and respect for nature. In this way, gardening becomes an act of cultural preservation and an opportunity to, as one home grower put it, “work with nature and appreciate the wisdom of Abenaki growing methods.”

Nourishing Community by Donating the Harvest

Photo from the Bradford Elementary School 3rd graders harvesting the Three Sisters mounds.

One of the most impactful aspects of the Abenaki Seeds Project is the opportunity to give back to the Abenaki Helping Abenaki Food Pantry. By distributing the harvest from home gardens to local food pantries, this helps to address food insecurity in a meaningful way and give more people a chance to pitch in. While it doesn’t solve food access challenges entirely, it does ensure that more fresh, nutritious food - specifically culturally appropriate food - is available to the local Abenaki Community. 

This relationship between gardeners and food pantries cultivates community ties and a network of support where individuals can learn from one another and build solidarity. As community members come together to grow and harvest, they strengthen their bonds and create a shared sense of purpose.

“In this way, gardening becomes an act of cultural preservation and an opportunity to, as one home grower put it, “work with nature and appreciate the wisdom of Abenaki growing methods.””

— 2024 Abenaki Seeds Project Participant

Cultivating Awareness and Education

The Abenaki Seeds Project serves as a meaningful platform for education. Each year, participants in the project receive a Grower’s Guide, regular emails with gardening tips and updates as the growing season progresses, how-to gardening videos, and opportunities to connect with fellow growers.

But the education doesn’t stop with the home growers of the project! Local 3rd graders from the Bradford Elementary School are also a part of the learning. They walk down to the farm multiple times a year to help plant, tend, and harvest the Three Sisters mounds, while learning about Abenaki language and culture in the process. 

By engaging neighbors here in the Kearsarge Area community from various backgrounds, the Abenaki Seeds Project promotes cultural exchange and understanding, and we are deeply grateful to our Abenaki partners for their generosity of spirit through this process!

Abenaki Tribal member Lynn teaches Abenaki words to the Bradford 3rd Graders during their visit to harvest at the farm, October 2024.

Celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day through initiatives like the Abenaki Seeds Project encourages us to appreciate the deep connections between land, food, and culture - and to honor the original inhabitants of this place!

Through these collaborative efforts, we not only contribute to the preservation of Indigenous agricultural practices but also build a more equitable and resilient food system for our communities.

In recognizing the gifts that Indigenous cultures have provided and continue to provide, we can foster a more inclusive future where everyone's heritage is respected and celebrated. Together, we can plant the seeds of change, ensuring that future generations enjoy the bounty of our diverse agricultural heritage!

5th Annual Tray it Forward: Celebrating Half a Decade of Growing Gardeners

Wednesday, May 29th marked Tray Delivery Day for the 5th annual Tray it Forward program, where thousands of free seedlings made their way to 168 individuals and 5 food pantries in the Kearsarge area.

Check out the highlights in this video:

After half a decade of serving the surrounding community, it is a great time to take a stroll through memory lane and recount the growth (pun intended) of the Tray it Forward project! 

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic posed a threat to our local communities relationships, financial stability, and food security. In the midst of the rising mayhem and stress, a small group of Granite Staters asked themselves: 

“What can we do to help this whole situation?

-Greg Berger, owner of Spring Ledge farm.  

Organizations– including Kearsarge Food Hub, Colby Sawyer College, Kearsarge Neighborhood Partners, and Spring Ledge farm– came together (on Zoom, of course) to brainstorm what support they could offer for their community. After tinkering with different concepts, they ultimately decided upon the Tray it Forward initiative: a project that allows each of the partners to utilize their strengths in unique ways. The Tray it Forward project was born, sprouting a new hope for local food revitalization and community building by providing free seedlings to aspiring gardeners in the surrounding towns. 

In the following years, Tray it Forward continued, but, of course, with time comes change. Since 2020, Tray it Forward has increased the amount of seedlings that are supplied to gardeners, reaching 550 trays (8,000 seedlings) this year, an increase of 200 trays since the first year of the project! Not only has the quantity improved, but the quality has too. The Tray it Forward team has been working hard to learn what participants want in a tray and need from the program: changing the size of trays, the seedling assortment within the trays, and providing support throughout the summer in the form of e-newsletters, how-to videos, gardening guides, question forms, exploring in person workshops, and surveys.

Looking forward into the next half a decade, the Tray it Forward project plans to continue onward, inspired to continue growing gardeners and fostering a local community engaged in growing their own food! As part of this enthusiasm for growth and continuance, an internship was created this summer with the goal of improving the program for future years. The summer intern will spend the season learning about the program from a variety of perspectives– from the creators of the project to the participants - and coming up with recommendations based on this research for how to improve.

None of this would be possible without the community members who support this project and allow these aspirations to be actualized. This year alone, over 40 volunteers from Kearsarge Neighborhood Partners made the project feasible, helping at every step from attending meetings early in the year to helping grow the seedlings to delivering the trays on delivery day. At the same time, support from community members who donate money or goods to support this project allows the team to continue supplying seedlings to anyone who requests them year after year free of charge.

The project has continuously received immense support from individuals in the community as well as businesses like Griffin Greenhouse Supply, Johnny's Seeds, and Ball Seed Company. Without all of you, this milestone would not have been possible, and neither would the optimism the team has looking forward. So for this half decade anniversary the Tray it Forward team would like to say:

Thank you!

 The delivery day team!

4th Annual Tray it Forward: 8000 seedlings make their way to homes & community sites.

The Tray it Forward Program began in 2020 as a collaborative way to build community, share gardening education, and grow more food. This was really in response to the COVID pandemic and the struggles we were facing as a community, like difficulty accessing food and strained supply chains.

We’ve learned since then that this program is impactful for more than just getting through a crisis - it is foundational for building connections in community centered on reclaiming the knowledge and joy of growing our own food!

In its fourth year now, Tray it Forward distributed 400 seedling trays totaling 8000 plants to individuals, organizations like local health centers and food pantries, and community garden sites like the Main Street Garden at Colby-Sawyer College.

Community members supported the program through donations to Spring Ledge Farm, where the seedlings were grown and each donation was matched plant for plant by Spring Ledge. Local businesses donated supplies that folks could use to get their gardens going. Dozens of volunteers coordinated by Kearsarge Neighborhood Partners joined together to bring this program to life, from outreach to participants to delivering the trays directly to homes.

In response to community feedback, the 4th Annual Tray it Forward program is focusing more energy on container gardens for homes that don’t have access to land, which is a common barrier to gardening. Generous donations of potting soil and containers were gifted to program participants alongside their seedling trays to provide a solid foundation for growing food in containers.

While one main goal of Tray it Forward is to reach more first time gardeners, many folks receiving trays are in their third or fourth year gardening thanks to this program. We’re really starting to pick up speed in growing are collective knowledge of producing nutritious, delicious vegetables from home gardens. More than that, folks are feeling the shared joy and wellbeing of getting outside, putting our hands in the soil, and feeling supported and cared for by one another.

“The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul.”

— Alfred Austin, poet

To help folks on their journey, we created the Victory Garden Toolkit, which is a wide-ranging collection of gardening resources, from how to start the garden to weekly newsletters that dig into common issues and processes you might find in the garden throughout the season - from planting to harvest!

We’re looking forward to providing educational videos straight from the garden this year to help folks have a successful growing season. We’re also excited to check in with our gardeners to see how things are growing. Stay tuned!

Check out the video recap from the 4th Annual Tray Delivery Day!

Brought to you by FEED Kearsarge