Senior Farm Shares

Every year since 2008 Stone Soup has been delivering free farm shares to Springfield, MA through the Senior Farm Share Program. It’s made possible by a grant from the state of MA that’s administered through CISA (Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture). So our farm is paid for part of the weekly produce, and the rest is donated. It’s a 10 week farm share program for low-income seniors. Back in 2008 when we started it was 50 shares a week, but now it’s grown to 140 a week!

Because of the July flooding this year I didn’t know if it would be possible to do the senior shares, but we made it work the same way we continued our Hadley and Boston area farm shares - a combination of our remaining crops, donated crops from neighboring farms, and buying produce from those same neighbors.

The 10 week program just ended in mid September, and similarly to our other 2023 farm shares it wasn’t the most abundant or diverse year, but we made it work and I think it came out pretty good under the circumstances. And next year we’ll be back and it’s sure to be a better year in 2024.