Telegram & Gazette, Brigham Hill, Massachusetts August 14, 2006 Brigham Hill Community Farm a labor of love By Pamela H. Sacks
As the midday sun beat down, Maddie Mulvihills nimble fingers tied up a tomato plant. She and nine other teenagers were weeding, tying and cutting vegetables at Brigham Hill Community Farm in North Grafton. Members of Young Neighbors in Action, they had traveled from Garden City, N.Y., to spend a week volunteering as field hands. I feel like were all really fortunate, and we have to give back, said Maddie, her long ponytail pulled through the back of her New York Yankees baseball cap. Youre actually getting your hands dirty. It is hard work, but its rewarding. Those were welcome words to Ken Crater, who oversees the nonprofit Community Harvest Project Inc., which grows eight different vegetables on about seven acres at the farm. Brigham Hill, in operation since 2001, produces between 25,000 and 40,000 pounds of produce a year. All of it is donated to the Worcester County Food Bank, which arranges to have it distributed directly to area shelters, food pantries and other agencies helping the hungry in 60 cities and towns in Central Massachusetts. People who might otherwise consume only canned vegetables get a chance to enjoy fresh picked summer and butternut squash, cabbage, broccoli, eggplant, peppers and zucchini, as well as tomatoes. They are our largest nonprofit donor of fresh produce, Jean McMurray, the food banks executive director, said of Brigham Hill. We work with a lot of local farmers, and they are very generous, but Brigham Hill is growing food just for us. We are very fortunate. Volunteers, such as Maddie, 17, and her friends, are the backbone of the farm, said the 51-year-old Mr. Crater. Each year, about 3,000 people of all ages many from schools, colleges, churches, civic groups and corporations plant, weed, pick, wash and pack the vegetables. The farm has just two paid staff members: Ken Dion, the farm manager, and Maia Wentrup, the volunteer coordinator. Both are part time. For us, its a matter of piecing together all these disparate groups to make a farm work, Mr. Crater said. He added that the planting and picking are sometimes part of the school curriculum or serve as community service. Companies have used the experience to build teamwork. Each takes away something very personal. Its part of the reason were here. Mr. Crater, a lanky, laid-back man with a close-cut beard, is the vice president and treasurer of the Community Harvest Project. But that hardly describes his role in the enterprise. Indeed, he is a story in himself. Mr. Crater, who grew up in New Jersey, dropped out of school in the eighth grade. He was bored. The public school system cant adapt well to individual needs, he remarked. I followed my own interests and learned electronics. He moved to Massachusetts at the age of 17. Three years later, in 1975, he and his brother, Steve, founded Control Technology Corp., a Hopkinton-based manufacturer of electronic systems for industrial automation. As the company hummed along, Mr. Crater joined the board of the Worcester County Food Bank. He was working on organizational issues and raising money when he was asked to assist Bill and Rose Abbott, an elderly couple who had been using volunteers to raise food for the hungry on their 15-acre spread in Hopkinton, Elmwood Farm. Mr. Crater formed a volunteer board to take on the task. Mr. Abbott died in 1997, his wife in 2000. Meanwhile, Mr. Crater and his wife, Peg Ferraro, who live on Brigham Hill Road, learned that 11 acres contiguous to their property would be up for sale. The great love Peg and I have for the town and the social linkages that exist made us want to bring the program here, Mr. Crater said. We wanted to see what we could do, and it made the board disposed to use it as a test case. The sale went through in 2000, and the couple, with the assistance of an advisory committee, immediately started drawing up plans for an energy efficient, low maintenance barn and a greenhouse. Today, the cream-colored barn serves as headquarters for the farm and a meeting place for community events and presentations. In the view of Mr. Crater and Ms. Ferraro, Brigham Hill not only produces food, it reconnects people to the land. As a culture, we are becoming too detached from the sources of our food, Mr. Crater said. We have kids come and look at a cabbage and say, Whats that? We say, You know what cole slaw is, right? Even adults get more of a connection to the food chain, coming to a place like this. The farm is developing sustainable techniques to conserve water, maintain soil fertility and reduce the use of pesticides and herbicides. The idea is to eventually replicate Brigham Hills mission and methods by creating similar farms around the state. Among other things, it would spread an implicit message about the role of air, water and soil in human existence. With all our technology and the advancements we benefit from, it comes down to those three elements, Mr. Crater advised. If we lose any one of them, all else comes crashing to a halt. ______________________________________________________ The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org To post an e-mail to the list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription: https://secure.mallorn.com/mailman/listinfo/community_garden
