“IT'S IMPORTANT FOR US ALL TO EAT WELL, IF WE'RE GOING TO BE WELL AND DO GOOD IN THE COMMUNITY AND IN THE WORLD.”
Kannan Thiruvengadam, Director, Eastie Farm
Jenny Wechter, Climate Corps and Development Manager, Eastie Farm
Paige Curtis: I’m curious about how Eastie Farm came to learn about Ujima. What was your first point of connection to our work?
Kannan Thiruvengadam: Previously, I did some work with the Boston Impact Initiative, and I met Deborah Frieze along the way, so that was probably the first connection point. There was also one instance where Ujima came to East Boston to present, and did outreach to organizations in the area. But I heard about Ujima all over the place doing fun things.
Can you share a bit about how Eastie Farm fits into the broader landscape of urban farms and gardens in Boston?
Kannan: There are other organizations doing similar work, and each has their own slant to this work. There's Boston Food Forest Coalition, Urban Farming Institute, [and] there’s also the Trustees which run community gardens around the city. One of the great things about our farm is that there is no waiting list to join, all of the beds are shared across the community. In our case, East Boston is kind of separated geographically from the rest of Boston and we know that we are in an environmental justice community. So we find food and education to be effective vehicles to do that justice work. We are also located in a food desert. So it's important for us all to eat well, if we're going to be well and do good in the community and in the world. So good food is important to us.
We also bring into people's awareness, the food and fruit trees that already exist in the community to ensure they're not cut down. With mulberry trees, for instance, and things like that, if people don't know what it is they think of it as messy. But if we offer education around them, then they think of it as a treasure in the community. And so we're here to do that kind of education even if we don't own the space where these trees are. Overall, we’re more focused on food, regenerative use of land, and appreciating the nature that's already here, ultimately in support of a livable climate for all of us.
Eastie Farm is the first farming-based organization [and non-profit] in the Ujima Good Business Alliance. How does being in the UGBA advance your goals as a farm?
Kannan: For one, being a business is understood as different from being a nonprofit. There is a view of nonprofits as charity-based, which we’re not comfortable with. We appreciate that Ujima sees us as a business that is growing and navigating new issues as we evolve. When you have more people join the team, now we must figure out how to support employees and compensate them fairly. Ujima and its standards evaluates businesses on those values of equity and how employees are treated.
Jenny Wechter: It’s also important for us to be part of the UGBA to demonstrate that businesses can be regenerative, rather than exploitative. Our model shows that we can have a zero emission greenhouse that produces really high quality food, and brings people together in a joyful way, and these activities allow us to create so many added value products that are positive. We can even make profit and maintain an equity-centered, diverse organization. There's a nonprofit that is also able to actually sustain itself in its work and grow.
What is the Eastie Farm’s team looking forward to this year?
Jenny: Personally, I'm most excited for a dance party in the greenhouse, because we’re going to finally have a permeable floor. I'm most excited about really exposing the youth in our Climate Corps to the realm of possibilities within the world of ‘green’ jobs in creative ways. So I look forward to the youth not only getting their hands on the soil, but to thinking about what it is that they really want to contribute and what they want to learn. We have access to so many different resources within the city of Boston, from beekeepers to legislators, so we’re thinking about how to create a concerted green economy through youth empowerment.
Kannan: I agree with what Jenny shared. I find working with youth very rewarding. From a business perspective, I find our integrated CSA to be super interesting as well. “Integrated” meaning we sell the CSA boxes at market rate, but we also sell at affordable prices and have a free option. Because they’re all integrated together, there’s no stigma associated with purchasing the lower cost or free boxes. This integrated approach helps us bring people of different backgrounds together. We’re able to price the CSA boxes this way because we receive some grants, as a nonprofit business, and this allowed us to break even on the CSA program. We’re learning a lot about how to be more efficient and sustainable as a business. Eventually, we hope that folks paying market rate for CSA boxes will allow us to offer even more low cost options. ♡
The seeds for Eastie Farm were planted in 2015, when several East Boston neighbors, noticing the empty and overgrown plot at 294 Sumner Street, proposed the idea of starting a community farm.
Kannan Thiruvengadam is the director of Eastie Farm, an urban farm in East Boston focused on community resiliency. He also hosts "What's up Eastie?", a radio show about local issues in a larger context, at Zumix, a youth organization in East Boston. Kannan is also a Climate Ready Boston Leader. He has a technology background, has studied climate science, permaculture, and community engagement, and is passionate about regenerative and sustainable practices in agriculture and urban design. Kannan lives with his partner Rudi in historic Belmont Square in East Boston overlooking the harbor and the beautiful Boston skyline.
Jenny Wechter is the Climate Corps and Development Manager at Eastie Farm where she manages organizational development strategy, K-8 educational programs and a fellowship for high school teens. She is also a certified Yoga Instructor. She completed her Master of Education at Harvard, and her B.A. in Psychology at the University of Texas, Austin.