Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South
Brockton and Taunton, Massachusetts | EST. 2021
Farmers
Max Fontes, Rasheeda Brown, and Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South Club Members
Model
Boys & Girls Club farming program
No. of Farms
Three
Area Served
Boston Metro South
Main Crops
Lettuces, Hot Peppers, Sugar Snap Peas
Farm Models
Greenery™
Watch our video case study on Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South!
In Boston Metro South, the local Boys & Girls Club has brought community members, kids and families, big-name donors, and nonprofit leadership together around a container farming program. With Clubhouses in Brockton and Taunton and a summer camp also located in Taunton, Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South (BGCMS) serves some 2,500 local kids annually. BGCMS first brought a Freight Farm to their Taunton Camp Riverside location in early 2021. It was followed shortly thereafter in early 2022 by a second Freight Farm at their Brockton Clubhouse.
The farms offer more than just food to the Clubs; they present opportunity. They are teaching tools; the basis of creative programming for youth; a way of involving community volunteers; and a way for the Boys & Girls Club to support other local nonprofits.
“What we need to do is provide kids with food that is healthy and nutritious, and feed kids. That food insecurity piece is key for us, so that’s number one. Number two is we need to promote volunteerism in the community and people giving back and helping others. Lastly, we need to educate people about where their food comes from. Those are the three pillars of our program and what is most important to its success.”
Stakeholders and Funding
One of the major reasons that all of this has come to fruition is Derek Heim, Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South’s President and CEO. Derek had wanted to bring a Freight Farm to the Clubs for five years — ever since he’d run a community farm at a previous job. While farmland isn’t available in downtown Brockton, Derek wanted to be able to offer the BGCMS community a similar opportunity. He held on to this dream until the state’s Food Security Infrastructure Grant funding during COVID made it possible for Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South to purchase their first farm.
The farm was a success — so much so that the Club caught the attention of Beth Israel Lahey Health, a Greater Boston-based health care system. Beth Israel Lahey Health approached the Club and encouraged BGCMS to apply for their Community Benefits Grant. They were awarded the funding, and this was how they bought their second Freight Farm.
Since then, additional grant funding and private donations have been sustaining the farm, as Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South has chosen not to operate their farm for a profit. This funding has gone toward the cost of operating the farms and buying necessary supplies, as well as expanding the farms’ community potential: BGCMS used a grant to purchase a distribution truck that helps them deliver the produce they grow to local organizations. Derek is also pursuing a longer-term funder to support the costs of running the farm going forward so the Club can continue to focus on the impact of the Freight Farm, rather than the financials.
Youth and the Freight Farms
Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South wants as many kids to be able to benefit from the Freight Farms as possible. Produce gets from the farms to kids’ mouths via salad bars set up in each Club. Families are also able to take home produce through meal bags provided at the Clubs’ monthly (free) “Freight Farm Family Market.”
Beyond eating the produce, Club members are involved in seeding, transplanting, and harvesting. But that’s not all: From STEM to taste tests to crafts, robust programming originates in the Freight Farms.
“Regardless of where you come from or the economic constraints that you have, access to food is a bare essential.”
STEM Education
STEM education was a top priority for Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South, particularly because students in Taunton have low test scores, with only 19% of students testing proficient in math. At 23%, Brockton students perform only slightly better. Both are well below the state average of 37% proficiency.
Striving to help students succeed, Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South built the farming curriculum around teaching students STEM lessons. They learn the science behind the farm and what’s happening in it on any given day. They learn about the parts of a flower and pollination, and then become worker bees and pollinate with paintbrushes.
“Our Club kids have experimented with something that is different, that is unique, and sort of stretched their brains for a moment. That is one of the benefits of our operation, and would be a benefit to any Boys & Girls Club, because there is a direct connection to STEM learning and an educational curriculum that is crucial to what we’re trying to do to build Great Futures.”
Creative Farm Programming
Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South’s Massachusetts Service Alliance (MSA) Commonwealth Corps member, Rasheeda Brown, has taken farm programming — and experimental crops — to a whole new level. In one activity, she brought Club kids out to the farms to harvest herbs and then helped them make their own candles scented by the herbs from their harvest. In another activity, she intends to bring the kids out to the farm to experiment with how music impacts plants. She and the kids also grew, harvested, and dried an all-new crop: tea leaves! Once the leaves were ready, Rasheeda and the kids brewed them and sipped tea they had grown themselves — a totally new way of interacting with the fruits of their labor.
“I always try to keep it fresh, so we never do the same thing twice, and I always think of new ways to engage the farm and the youth together.”
Food Education
Overall, the Freight Farms are helping Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South to teach Club members about nutrition, food, and where food comes from. The farms and their produce have received a positive response from kids, who come to the Club wanting to see the progress of the crops they’ve helped to grow.
The kids like standard crops, like lettuce, from the Freight Farms and will eat them when they appear at the Club salad bar. What they really love, though, are the fun experimental crops. From the aforementioned tea leaves to strawberries, sugar snap peas, green beans, and hot peppers, experimental crops really engage Club members. Kids can’t resist the morbid curiosity of a hot pepper taste test!
“We’ve honestly had an overall very positive response when it comes to the kids making salads at the salad bar. They’re usually really into that, especially when we grow things like oakleaf and butterhead lettuce — stuff that is different colors that they haven’t really seen before.”
Engaging the Community
Two Freight Farms grow much more produce than Club kids and their families can eat, so Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South donates all extra produce to targeted partners around Brockton and Taunton, primarily food pantries, as well as feeding programs and a local public housing authority. This has helped to strengthen Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South’s connection to their community.
Rather than assume what varieties of produce their community partners need, the Club surveyed them to ask what the individuals accessing their services are looking for. Based on their feedback, Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South hopes to grow more Asian greens and specialty foods integral to other cultures, to better serve the community.
“If we can take these greens, which I argue are better than what they’re getting at [the supermarket], and provide them to people who don’t have access to them, it’s a win all the way around for this organization, whether it makes us any money or not, because I believe the goodwill will pay us forward. And the funders will continue to say, “You’re doing the right thing for the community. Here’s the money to do it.”
Operating the two Freight Farms is a community effort. It was important to the Boys & Girls Club to encourage volunteerism in the community; happily, volunteers are largely interested in the farms! Parents of Club members, retirees, and a Brockton-based gardening group all volunteer at the Freight Farms. High school co-ops and 18–24-year-old students from Brockton Public Schools also help out at the farms regularly to learn work and life skills.
Overall, the farms are a win-win-win-win. They’re a benefit to Club members, providing them with valuable programming and nutritious produce. They’re a benefit to the Club, bringing in funding and acclaim for their innovative initiative. They’re a benefit to individuals in the community, offering opportunities for growth and involvement in an exciting project, as well as food. And they tie the Club and its members to those individuals, creating a closer-knit, more supportive community.
“[Other Boys & Girls Clubs] have watched what we’ve done here and they’re interested and engaged. My hope is that this turns into a reality that Clubs all across the country say, “Wow, this is for me.” I know it’s an initial big cost, but it’s something that a funder will jump all over.”
Watch our webinar with Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South!
Recorded: Monday, April 3rd at 12:00 PM EST
Learn more about BGCMS and how they’ve incorporated their Freight Farms into programming in How to Enhance Programming at Your Boys & Girls Club With a Vertical Farm, our webinar featuring BGCMS staff. Access the recording using the form below!
Keep in touch with Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South!
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