Did you know there is a soil microbe that creates happiness? Are you interested in volunteering on our no-till human powered farm on Mondays and/or Tuesdays through the spring, summer, and fall? Grow through the seasons each week, as you experience a diversity of approaches to no-till farming for life! Volunteers may come either day, but consistency and commitment is important. We work hard with great conversation and offer you learning, lunch and some veggies to take home. Call Ricky at 978-544-7564 or send us a message to talk about volunteering.
As a small and strongly community rooted organization in a region, we focus on initiatives that foster health, justice and food and energy resiliency in our own region, which has both tremendous economic and health needs and great potential to survive and thrive.
Seeds of Solidarity Education Center is a non-profit organization based in Orange, MA that innovates programs to awaken the power among people of all ages -– from toddlers to teens to people who are incarcerated -– to Grow Food Everywhere to transform hunger to health, and create resilient lives and communities. The organization is based at solar-powered Seeds of Solidarity Farm which uses agroecological methods to regenerate soil, restore climate, and build community food resilience. Seeds of Solidarity is located at 165 Chestnut Hill Road, Orange, MA where you will find our seasonal farmstand stocked with fresh greens and produce from April to November.
A hearty thanks to Flat Rock Disc Golf for their great winter benefit event!
And wonderful contributions from individuals like YOU!
We have a long and vibrant history of helping schools establish school gardens locally and throughout the Northeast. School gardens are a wonderful way to engage students in developing life-long skills for food resiliency, health, and healing through connecting to the earth and each other. School gardens and composting programs are an exciting element of the growing “Farm to School” movement. Curricular connections and opportunities for service learning abound!
We offer an annual workshop for school and community educators at our site each summer. In addition, we can provide customized Grow Food Everywhere (TM) workshops and trainings at your school (contact us for fees).
We have created over 50 raised bed gardens in a variety of settings that engage community members of all ages in growing and enjoying fresh food freely. Over the years, these were created at schools, health care facilities, childcare centers, public libraries, and more recently women’s centers, jails, and a recovery center.
Our Grow Food Everywhere program for family childcare providers helps nourish young children and their families. Through a partnership with the Franklin County House of Corrections, we teach gardening for incarcerated men and women. We were also pleased to partner with Greenfield Community College, Montague Catholic Social Ministries, and New England Center for Women in Transition and the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts on the GARDEN project that supports food and economic resilience for low-income women and those who have experienced trauma. Additionally, a partnership with Heywood Hospital and their Quabbin Retreat center for those in recovery from substance abuse engaged us in creating therapeutic gardens and related programming at their site in Petersham, MA.
Program History: First there were gardens for seven schools (2003-2006 implementation) then at the Athol Memorial Hospital, then community food resiliency came to exciting fruition in 2011 with the launch of our Grow Food Everywhere for Health and Justice initiative. Our community suffers from hunger, childhood obesity and economic despair. In uplifting response and towards wellness for all, we created raised bed gardens that provide nutrition education and real food for anyone in need at our local community health center.
In 2012 we added gardens at the Orange Innovation Center, a converted factory, cared for by tenants and master gardener Pat Conrad who brings food to the Orange Food Pantry. In addition, by the end of 2012, 20 low-income families received raised beds abundant with salad greens, tomatoes, cukes and beans. Fresh food for all, one household at a time. Then we created gardens at the local public library, the North Quabbin Community Co-op, and the Orange Food Pantry.
A garden creation begins with the arrival of community resources: locally milled lumber, a truck filled with rich soil from Clearview Compost, and a crew of enthusiastic Seeds of Solidarity staff and sometimes volunteers. Seeds of Solidarity staff and youth leaders visit through the season. Grow Food Everywhere beds can include a “mini-hoophouse” to extend abundant crops and much-needed nourishment of their family well into the winter, and enable an early start to fresh salads come spring.
History: Through our Grow Food Everywhere for Health and Justice initiative we initially created gardens at the homes of families facing hunger as well as throughout the community. But joblessness, landlord problems or domestic violence sometimes meant they had to leave their homes… and gardens. Simultaneously, we realized that there were many women in our community who ran family childcare programs at their homes, and that these providers could reach 10-12 children and their families-many in need of nourishment in all forms- through one garden. And, they had the enthusiasm and flexibility to integrate garden learning into the day, and to use their fresh harvest for snacks and lunches. Over the past two years, this program has blossomed a supportive and enthusiastic network of family childcare providers, inspired many young children to grow, prepare and enjoy healthy vegetables, increase physical activity, cultivate connection to nature, and extend fresh joy to their families.
We celebrated 20 years of SOL (Seeds of Leadership) Garden in 2018, our longest running program, and an amazing, life-changing experience for youth and staff alike! We have transitioned this to our Craft Your Own Life Program, and hope others will learn from our resources and curricula below.
Since the programs inception in 1998, 400 SOL Garden participants, most low-income and underemployed, have gained valuable life, college and career skills as they have: cultivated a quarter acre garden and donated thousands of pounds of vegetables to families and senior citizens in our low-income community; constructed their own 40′ solar greenhouse and designed and built the “SOL Shack” meeting space; helped planted and tend gardens throughout the community at a shelter for homeless families, elementary schools, a hospital and health center, a library and for local families; created and sold hundreds of ceramic SOL Bowls; given over 30 presentations at conferences and events; participated in Earth and Spirit youth retreats and outdoor adventure, workshops in nutrition, cooking, and healing arts, celebration art, and helped thousands learn, celebrate, and play at the North Quabbin Garlic and Arts Festival.
SOL Garden is free to local youth, and made possible through grants from the Mass Cultural Council Youth Reach Program, The AT&T Aspire Program, The Greenleaf Foundation, and individual contributions.