Beauty in the Unexpected: Deeping Partnerships in Hampshire & Franklin Counties
By Sarah Bluestein, Community Gleaning Coordinator
One of the most beautiful parts of growing a community program is the potential for connection and partnerships that could never have been planned. Since we ramped up our open community gleaning program in 2023, hundreds of volunteers have joined us as we’ve gleaned and delivered 78,705 pounds of fresh local produce to over 50 agencies and meal programs in five counties. On top of that resounding success, spontaneous connections have led to unexpected partnerships and opportunities, creating impact outside of the quantitative metrics that are often used to measure program success. Many of these connections have blossomed in Franklin and Hampshire Counties, enabling creative approaches to food security and vibrant community building through food.
In October 2023, Mike Hannigan, a student at Greenfield Community College (GCC), reached out to ask if I thought we’d have extra produce from an upcoming glean to bring to a pop-up event at the GCC food pantry. Mike quickly became a regular gleaner with our program, and we’ve now sent over 3,000 pounds of produce to pop-up campus food pantry events co-hosted by the GCC Permaculture Club. Besides being a great source of fresh local produce for students and staff, the outdoor tables overflowing with free brussels sprout stalks and giant sweet potatoes have been a welcome community gathering place full of excited discussions about produce and local farms. Members of the GCC Permaculture Club have also continued gleaning with us and distributing produce throughout their networks in Franklin County.
Extra daikon radishes at a 2023 fall glean also led to another collaboration – a kimchi workshop at Stone Soup Cafe in Greenfield! With connections formed from Mike’s Stone Soup internship at the time, another Stone Soup employee coming out to gleans, and the expertise of a librarian from GCC, hundreds of pounds of daikon radish that were too much for our agencies to take turned into a teaching opportunity. In 2024, when a gleaner called me about her neighbor having too many radishes, I suggested that she reach out to Mike, who she had met a few times at open community gleans. Mike was able to facilitate another kimchi workshop, building on the past year’s collaboration. It’s very meaningful to me that strong community connections through gleaning made this an easy possibility.
Here’s another example of our emergent connections: One volunteer came out to a glean in Hampshire County to harvest carrots. The next day, she volunteered at Stone Soup Cafe (an opportunity she was connected to through gleaning) and prepped the carrots for a community meal. The next day, she delivered free meals across the Greenfield area featuring those very carrots. She came back to the next community glean elated to share how she had followed the carrots on their journey. It is incredible to watch the carrots themselves physically move through the partnerships and networks we are building together.
Our partnerships show us every day how much wider of a network we can reach together than we could ever reach alone. Food access organizations like Stone Soup Cafe, Center for Self-Reliance, Franklin County Community Meals Program, Grow Food Northampton’s Mobile Market, Amherst Survival Center, and Northampton Survival Center, as well as gleaners themselves, are our biggest partners in distributing gleaned produce throughout Hampshire and Franklin Counties. Their distribution systems and knowledge of the communities they serve allow us to be even more responsive in our programmatic and operational collaborations.
Of course, none of this would be possible without the talent and generosity of farmers. Much of the produce we glean comes from farms across Hampshire and Franklin Counties. Astarte Farm, Atlas Farm, Bardwell Farm, Book & Plow Farm, Brookfield Farm, Clarkdale Fruit Farms, Kitchen Garden Farm, Next Barn Over Farm, Old Friends Farm, Quonquont Farm, Simple Gifts Farm, Stone Soup Farm, and the UMass Extension Vegetable Program all contributed to gleaning in 2024. Just Roots Community Farm, Riverland Farm, and Riquezas del Campo additionally hosted Deerfield Academy students (who regularly glean with us each Fall semester) to help with farm projects while learning about important topics like worker-owned farm co-ops, food access challenges specific to migrant and immigrant communities, and food as medicine. Gratitude goes both ways: A farmer from Amherst attended Stone Soup Cafe’s Harvest Supper and reached out to me to say that he was excited to recognize his own tomatoes in the meal!
When you plant the seeds for a uniquely connective space like our open community gleaning program, there is so much beauty in the unexpected. This program thrives on unanticipated connections and relies on people who want to be in relationship with each other to combat a broken food system. We’ve learned how important it is to lean into the uncertainty and see what will grow. By being in relationship with our incredible partners and volunteers and trusting each other’s knowledge and expertise, we collectively build resiliency in our local food system.
As climate change and other systemic impacts continue to alter the landscape of farming and our food supply, we can work towards greater food security by building responsive and adaptive partnerships. Not only do our gleaning partners distribute food to more people in a literal sense, they help us to shape our programmatic priorities to make sure that community needs are being met. We have no idea who might meet at a glean or what it will lead to, but the fact that our gleans have been a space for so much meaningful connection shows us we’re on the right track.