| View this email online if it doesn't display correctly |
|
|
|
| | Dear Friends,
I'm hoping that you all are enjoying this weather as much as I am! Here at FRESH, we are solidly into our busy season - peas have been planted, spring AND summer crops have been started in our greenhouse, early plants like onions and greens are starting to come up, and we are ready for our beloved Spring Plant Sale! This Saturday, April 24, 10:00-noon, we will be offering:
beets, broccoli, cabbage, cilantro, collards, dill, kale, lettuce, mustard greens, onions, parsley, and yokatta-na
We'll also have super-cool FRESH merchandise for sale, including hats, totes, and tee shirts. Come on down and support your community; we'd love to see you!
We'd also like to take a moment to congratulate our own Julie Garay on her TEN YEAR anniversary with FRESH! Her intelligence, empathy, hard work, and wonderful sense of humor and social justice make her such a valuable member of the FRESH organization. We love you, Julie, and we're so glad you're part of our team!
Below, Julie shares some thought and reflections about her time with FRESH. Enjoy!
cheers, Davana
|
|
| | CSA Signups are now open! We're accepting signups from now until May 1, at which time, we'll hold a lottery if there is more interest than availability. You can find links to our market rate and mission rate signups on our website, www.freshnewlondon.org |
| | | | A Love Letter to FRESH
I have been a part of FRESH New London for 10 years now; my anniversary was last week, April 13th. As I co-ran the first week of the spring break program after a year of isolation from COVID, I couldn’t stop thinking about how much FRESH has helped me grow and become the women I am today. I was introduced to FRESH by my middle school teacher Mirna Martinez when I was just 14 years old, she’d known me for many years prior to that because she was also my sister’s middle school teacher. Being able to come into a program with friends from middle school and also my teacher, who was the food justice educator at that time, was a huge deal for me. I was able to be myself in ways I couldn’t be anywhere else, at the farm on the Waterford Country School campus, where we grew most of our food. It was a safe haven for me. I was able to run around and sing ‘Just a Friend’ from across the field while harvesting kale and tomatoes. We shared our dreams of traveling the world while thinning out carrots, and discussed the murder of Trayvon Martin and the protests that were erupting around the country while weeding.
Being able to connect and create relationships with the staff, leaders, and youth of FRESH that came and went throughout my time here helped me strengthen my own sense of belonging and inner power. I never really felt like my voice mattered or I could make an impact to my community until FRESH. Something as simple as sharing with a young person how much I love my mother’s cooking and how proud I am to be from Puerto Rican, or how much I love being able to walk to a snack bed next to my house and grab some cucumbers or basil, reminds me every day that the lessons that we share in and out of FRESH matter. Today, I am 24 years old, the first college graduate of my family, and the assistant director at the organization that I love with all my heart. I feel truly blessed and privileged to be able to wake up every day and do what I love: watering plants that we will be selling to the community at our plant sale, planning and prepping with my two partners in crime Alicia and Chloe, and being able to share my passions and letting young people know they shouldn’t be ashamed to not be able to afford organic or only being able to buy fast food because these are systems we want to dismantle.
FRESH is more than just growing food and employing young people. We are a community-based organization that support our people, listens to our community, and finds ways to solve the challenges that have been in place for years. FRESH is the people that you meet here and the lessons that you take home, it is also the love that you receive and the community you gain. Because of all of this I want to say thank you! Thank you to all of the staff, youth, and community members that have made my love for FRESH stronger through these years. I’m excited to continue to share my love for my community here with you all.
by Julie Garay, Assistant Director at FRESH |
| |
WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT
Interested in supporting FRESH with a tax-deductible donation?
Of course you are! Follow this link: http://www.freshnewlondon.org/support-us |
| |
