Spring is a hopeful time of year, especially for gardeners. We plant spinach and peas, watch rhubarb worm its way up and out of the soil, and let ourselves get excited for warm-weather crops like tomatoes and cucumbers. All of that is true of this year too, but it is tinged with the shadow of what is happening more broadly in the US.

Volunteers with rhubarb harvested from Sustainable Woodstock Billings Garden, to be donated to the Woodstock Food Shelf and Upper Valley Haven.

There are some very real concerns facing our community right now. In the coming year, we are likely to see big impacts, especially for low-income families:

• Food prices are anticipated to rise. The USDA’s Food Price Outlook forecasts that prices for all food will increase 3.2%, rising more quickly than historical levels. The price of eggs alone is predicted to rise by 57.6%.

• The federal administration has laid off the entire staff of the federal Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which provides heating assistance to low-income Vermonters.

• Local and state nonprofits like the Vermont Foodbank are facing cuts to funding, grants, and resources.

At Sustainable Woodstock, we’re paying close attention to community need and working to meet it wherever we can. This year’s food security work includes:

Community Gardens

Sustainable Woodstock strives to make gardening accessible to all. We run two community gardens at Billings Farm and King Farm in partnership with Billings Farm and the Vermont Land Trust. Our gardens observe organic and “no-till” or “minimal disturbance” gardening principles. These gardens serve over 30 families and organizations, and have dedicated growing space to produce vegetables for the Woodstock Community Food Shelf and the Haven– last year we donated over 300 pounds of produce! Gardeners pay a small sliding-scale fee, with the option to use a plot at no-cost. This makes land available to those who need space to garden, while providing fresh local produce to all. Interested in growing produce for your family and/or the Food Shelf at our community gardens? We will have a few newly created plots available at our Billings Garden this year. Email gardener@sustainablewoodstock.org to learn more.

Grow Your Own Garden Kits

Each year we also distribute Grow Your Own Garden Kits free of charge to individuals and families who want to produce their own food. Each kit includes seeds, seedlings and beginner’s book on organic gardening. This program is open to families who would not otherwise be able to afford to garden, and has empowered some 900 people of all ages to establish new gardens and grow their own nutritious vegetables and herbs. In 2025 we will again provide 75 kits free of charge, enabling more local families to grow their own gardens. You can sign up to receive a kit here. (thank you to our sponsor NOFA VT, and thank you to our partners: Sherburne Farms, Yankee Bookshop, and West Lebanon Feed & Supply).

Raised Garden Beds

Raised garden beds funded by Sustainable Woodstock at Riverside Mobile Home Park

Lastly, this year we will return to Riverside Mobile Home Park for the fourth year in a row to provide free wooden raised garden beds, soil, and plants to residents–last year we built 19 beds for residents! Our raised beds weathered the July 2023 flood well, as they sat high up and far away from flood waters. We look forward to working with residents again to meet the need for gardening space at Riverside, where the soil has been contaminated by floodwaters and many residents don’t feel safe growing food.

Though things may be shifting on a national scale, our small, local communities are powerful, and we have so many resources at our fingertips. We are surrounded by local farms and forests and a community of smart, driven people who want to see good in the world. If we want to take direct action to help families in need, we can.

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