Growing Places envisions a sustainable North Central Massachusetts comprised of healthy people and healthy communities.

OUR MISSION

Our mission is to inspire and connect the North Central MA community to create equitable access to healthy food and environmental sustainability through education, collaboration and advocacy.

GOALS

Working with individuals, families, non-profit organizations, farmers, businesses, schools and public agencies, we aim to:

• Make fresh, healthy food more accessible, affordable and widely consumed
• Improve physical, mental and emotional well-being
• Build skills, knowledge and confidence to grow and prepare fresh, healthy food sustainably
• Foster neighborhood pride and enjoyment
• Increase social and interpersonal connections
• Build community leadership skills
• Build healthy habits and lifestyle skills
• Advocate for a socially just regional food system
• Build organizational cultural knowledge and competency

STRATEGIES

We promote healthy people and healthy communities by:

• Providing resources for people to garden in community settings
• Teaching and advocating sustainable growing, preparation and consumption of food
• Gathering data, stories and practices to build knowledge of the cultural diversity in our community
• Creating opportunities and engaging a diverse group of stakeholders to support our work, including as program participants, volunteers, leaders, partners, donors, and investors
• Facilitating direct-to-consumer sales of affordable and healthy food, and encouraging the use and availability of federal nutrition programs
• Teaching and promoting environmentally healthy and sustainable living practices
• Assuming leadership in the promotion of regional food access strategies
• Designing and implementing strategies and systems to secure and sustain the financial and human resources to serve our mission

RACIAL JUSTICE STATEMENT

Black Lives Matter. Growing Places stands in solidarity with the Black, Brown and Indigenous families and communities who have lost their loved ones and continue to suffer from systemic racism in our country. We must do better collectively to condemn violence, brutality (particularly authoritarian and police brutality), inequities, and racism within our social and governmental structures and work together to dismantle racist institutions and systems in every aspect of our culture.

Systemic Racism Explained

Because we work toward equitable access to healthy food within a large geographic footprint, we recognize that systemic racism has historically and deeply penetrated our food system. These deep-rooted inequities continue to contribute to overwhelming barriers and lead to health and economic disparities for people of color. Examples of these disparities include but are not limited to wage discrimination, inequitable land ownership, access to education, credit access and an overall lack of access to healthy food. We must collectively acknowledge that these social determinants of health inequitably affect people of color, and we must mobilize to build an equitable and just food system.

Dismantling Racism in the Food System and How Structural Racism Reduces Sustainability in the Food System

To address these injustices, Growing Places has prioritized equity, access and inclusion as central organizational values. However, as a predominantly White organization, we acknowledge we have much to learn and act on to support communities of color. We also recognize that we must look inward to our own implicit biases, practices, and values to change the ways we uphold racist systems if we hope to assist in rooting out racism in the communities we serve. We encourage others to do internal work to be anti-racist and to start by educating themselves. A list of anti-racism resources for White people. Beyond educating ourselves, we are bringing these conversations to the partners we work with and the communities we serve. Uprooting racism within our North Central MA food system and communities will require collective action.

We at Growing Places fully understand our responsibility to stand up to systemic racism and accept that it is our job to fight racism at all levels. We are committed to dismantling racism through direct work, systemic channels and partnering with those who are and have been underrepresented.

In recognition of all who have suffered from racism and inequity, we encourage learning more from and supporting Black-led organizations and those committed to the national movement:

• Black Lives Matter
• Minnesota Freedom Fund
• Black Visions Collective
• Color of Change
• NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
• Community Justice Exchange – National Bail Network
• Council on American-Islamic Relations
• Hispanic Heritage Foundation
• Southern Poverty Law Center
• UNIDOS US
• And others found here at the S. Office of Minority Health

OUR IMPACT

Click here to read our 2023 Annual Report

Annual Report 2023 (3)

OUR HISTORY

In 2001, Harvard, Massachusetts, residents Kate Deyst and Cindy Buhner heard the story of Dan Barker and were inspired to launch the Growing Places Garden Project. Dan Barker, founder of the Home Gardening Project Foundation, began donating raised-bed vegetable gardens to people in need in the Portland, Oregon area in 1984. Kate and Cindy believed they could bring the power of gardening to communities in Central Massachusetts. In their first season, they built five gardens, using their own tools and hard work. Since that modest beginning, Growing Places has created more than 450 gardens and provided technical support to more than 1,500 low-income people in North Central Massachusetts. Organizationally, GP has successfully matured beyond its founding board and unpaid volunteer staff. We are led by a dynamic, community based board of directors. Today the organization is supported by a professional staff and hundreds of dedicated volunteers.