Explore: Hunger Relief
September 29, 2022 • Christine Savage, Communications Manager
Every year, Gaining Ground welcomes a team of local high school students who volunteer in the fields during their summer vacation. They learn and work alongside our farmers under the scorching sun and the pummeling rain, preparing the soil, transplanting seedlings, hand-weeding vegetable beds, and harvesting nutrient-dense produce for hunger relief. Throughout the 2022 season, […]
• Christine Savage, Communications Manager
There are many reasons why we love that Concord is a town flush with cyclists, but chief among them may be that a bicycle is what first brought volunteer Laurie Gleason to Gaining Ground’s fields. “I biked in many years ago. When we stopped there was one person working in the fields, and there was […]
August 29, 2022 • Gaining Ground
At Gaining Ground, our hunger-relief work is made possible by a community of volunteers that embodies a dedication to sustainable, holistic farming practices and uprooting food insecurity rivaled only by that of our incredible farmers. A standout member of this outstanding team is Allison Aley. We caught up with Allison to learn more about her […]
• Gaining Ground
We are thrilled to welcome several new members to our board of directors this year who bring with them a wealth of creativity, passion, and meaningful insight. This August, we’re going to take the opportunity to learn a bit more about two of these new members of the Gaining Ground team, Yvette Philip and Sigmund […]
July 27, 2022 • Christine Savage, Communications Manager
Having a conversation with a talented chef about meals cooked from scratch with farm-fresh ingredients is a surefire way to jumpstart your appetite. “Yesterday I had garlic scapes, we also got pea shoots, and then some spinach. I blended it all together—then I added a couple of magical ingredients—and it’s just this really beautiful herby […]
• Christine Savage, Communications Manager
MIT Brings a Drip Irrigation Prototype to Gaining Ground’s Fields “What’s that?” has been a particularly frequent question from our volunteers this year, and they’re not just talking about equipment, plants, insects, or other common farm-related mysteries. This year, the source of curiosity has tended to be a massive black drum, orange metal box, and […]
June 29, 2022 • Christine Savage, Communications Manager
The past two years have been a picture-perfect lesson in why our relationship with the land we cultivate is one of ongoing commitment and learning. A drought in 2020, followed by extraordinary heat and rain in 2021, took their toll on farms across New England—and Gaining Ground was no exception. We watched as our farm […]
June 5, 2022
The Ride for Food is a fun, friendly charity bike ride organized by Three Squares New England. For the sixth year, Gaining Ground is organizing a team to take part in the Ride and help us fight food insecurity. Over the past decade, the Ride for Food has raised over $3.7 million for local hunger-relief organizations in Massachusetts. This […]
May 27, 2022 • Christine Savage, Communications Manager
Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winning poet Mary Oliver once wrote, “I could not be a poet without the natural world.” And it is in this spirit that we are bringing a celebration of art to the farm this year. Throughout our fields this spring, we have set up a self-guided farm tour of […]
April 14, 2022 • Jennifer Johnson, Executive Director
“Wow.” The clerk at my neighborhood grocery store took a pause from scanning the items I’d placed on the conveyor belt, a bit stunned by what he’d seen on the cash register. “These cherries are over $15. Do you still want them?” I looked at the not-very-large bag the clerk was holding and answered that […]
• Allison Goodwin, Program Manager
Each season at Gaining Ground brings challenges as well as successes; rewarding reminders of the impact and importance of our hunger-relief mission. Foremost among these in 2021 was the return of our volunteer program after a pandemic-driven hiatus. The joy of those first April volunteers was undeniable in their warm smiles, rolled-up sleeves, and dirt-caked […]
You don’t have to look very hard to find the parallels between Gaining Ground and the Concord-Carlisle Community Chest. “The work that Gaining Ground does is at the core of why the Community Chest does what we do: You grow food locally, you harvest it, and then you distribute it back to people with the […]
March 3, 2022 • Christine Savage, Communications Manager
This winter has proved to be an especially harsh one for people experiencing food insecurity. Supply chain woes and labor shortages left the shelves at some grocery stores sparsely stocked. Food prices are the highest they’ve been in years, making it more difficult for folks to afford the food they need. As a result, more […]
November 30, 2021 • Christine Savage, Communications Manager
On a bright, warm November afternoon two weeks ago, the Gaining Ground team gathered in front of the barn—some of us wearing t-shirts in the midday sun that filtered through the treetops along the edge of the farm. We set out hefty boxes and bags of harvested vegetables and got to work assembling and filling […]
• Gaining Ground
For November, we’re taking the opportunity to catch up with our recipient partner House of Hope, which runs programs and permanent housing services with the goal of ending homelessness in Lowell. They do this through a commitment to transitioning families experiencing homelessness into greater social and economic stability. As a part of their work, they […]
October 25, 2021 • Gaining Ground
This month we paused to catch up with our recipient partner Healthy Waltham, which promotes collaborative approaches to improving the health and wellness of under-resourced populations in Waltham. They do this through programs that increase access to healthy foods, provide nutrition education, and create opportunities for physical activity. We spoke with Operations Director Maria DiMaggio […]
July 30, 2021 • Christine Savage, Communications Manager
We know that food security in Massachusetts—and throughout the country—is caused by many interconnected social and economic conditions. The effects of the pandemic have added yet another layer of complexity to the issue. Looking at the populations that have been hit hardest by both food insecurity and COVID-19, it is clear that access to food—or […]
June 11, 2021
Our Food for Families market—serving the Concord and Carlisle communities—returns this month. Staff and board members pre-assemble produce fresh from the farm into grocery bags, which they deliver to the distribution site in Concord. Rain or shine, the market takes place Saturdays at 11:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., from June 19 – October 2, 2021. […]
May 3, 2021 • Allison Goodwin, Program Manager
Gaining Ground’s 2020 growing season was memorable for many reasons. A pandemic altered our lives and behaviors forever. Food insecurity skyrocketed, both in Massachusetts and across the nation. Our caterpillar tunnels were damaged by a microburst storm in April, and we reluctantly suspended our volunteer program for the first time in the organization’s 26 year […]
• Christine Savage, Communications Manager
Last March, as the pandemic swept across the country, it didn’t take long before the folks at the Greater Lowell Community Foundation (GLCF) started to hear stories of people in need of personal protective equipment—gloves, masks, hand sanitizer. So they set to work creating an emergency fund for grants to address these new needs, and […]
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