New Bedford Guide Your Guide to New Bedford and South Coast, MA
When Averyl Andrade heard that 1 in 5 children in New Bedford and Fall River go to bed hungry every day, her life changed. She was a student at Bristol Community College studying English when she decided to take their Master Gardener’s Certificate Program on the side. Over the course of twelve weeks, she learned about farming, composting, pest management… but most importantly, the local food epidemic.
“Hearing that 1 in 5 kids go to bed hungry every day ate at me for weeks, like a stone in my stomach. It was making me nuts. I just kept thinking – 1 in 5? What are we going to do? How do we combat that?!”
Though she wasn’t quite aware of it yet, her entire life course was about to change. The very issue sparked a passion in her. “I had to do something. Change needed to happen,” she says. “There should never be a hungry child.”
Her response? Start a farm. “The only way to combat this is to grow good clean food and make it accessible to people.” And today, she and her husband Nathan are doing just that.
Healthy Futures Farm started in the spring of 2015 and today it is thriving, growing, and accomplishing exactly what they set out to do. In fact, their story is amazing. It’s incredible how much they’ve done in such short time. Perhaps it’s because Healthy Futures Farm was meant to serve the community.
Before she’d even finished her Master Gardener’s program, she went to Craigslist and posted an ad: Soon-to-be sustainable agg graduates looking for a farm. By her very next class, she’d already received a response. “A local landowner emailed us and said he had all this grass!,” she says, and today, that grass has become 2.75 acres of delicious, healthy produce.
With a plot of land, Averyl and her husband ventured out to work alongside other area farmers and learn more about the trade. They adopted best practices for clean farming and growing the healthiest produce they could. “Everything we do is clean and natural. We feel that all pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and synthetic fertilizers are unnecessary and damage soil. Instead, we focus on soil nutrition so everything grows naturally into a healthy plant.”
Today, they reap what they’ve sowed. The farm is breathtakingly beautiful, and the produce delicious. But don’t forget their central mission – to make good clean food affordable and accessible.
Through Healthy Futures Farm, Averyl and her husband are committed to feeding those who need good clean food the most. In just one year, they’ve made a huge impact working with food pantries, selling at farmer’s markets in underserved areas, and even making donations.
“We try to go to farmer’s markets in economically oppressed areas. Usually, their lead pay is WIC vouchers and food stamps. We also do pop-up markets with other groups like NB Wellness every Sunday at the Boys and Girls Club, and pop-ups at DCYF and different wellness events.”
And when they’re not selling, they’re donating. They donate to local food pantries, and even donate a weekly share to the animals at Buttonwood Park Zoo. Though Averyl is originally from Omaha, Nebraska, she had family in New Bedford. “We’d come up for long weekends and always visit the zoo. I was a kid and I remember when Ruth and Emily came, and I loved that.” Now, she gives back to ensure that the animals are eating good clean healthy food too.
Even more, it is Averyl’s personal mission to educate and inspire others to effect even bigger change. The farm works with the NB Roots and Shoots program, donating seeds and transplants, and talking to kids about gardening. When she’s not speaking to kids, she’s speaking on behalf of the program at BCC and how it gave her both her career and her purpose.
When asked what she loves most about her work, Averyl said, “This gives me a chance to help people in a really good way. When you change people’s eating habits for the better, that’s pretty cool. I really like feeding people. That’s key. When people come back and they say to me, ‘it was so good,’ that’s so great.”
She has fun with it too. “I like being able to get people to try new things, or even just willing to try it… It’s really nice to get to see kids try new foods, or to have a parent say, ‘my kid will not eat a tomato,’ and then they eat a tomato, or, ‘My husband will not eat a vegetable and you got him to eat lettuce,’ …and now, they’re willing to try other stuff.” Learning to love healthy food is at the core of her work. It is accomplishing her goal of changing people’s food habits, for the better.
Healthy Futures Farm has done so much already, but they’ve only just begun. “We’re working with a lot of other small local farms to get everyone to understand how important, good clean local food is.”
“This is the movement. People are going to start to recognize that their health is in their hands. It’s not in the hands of the doctors… Eating healthy, taking care of yourself, that’s the one all save all.”
Her hope for the future? “To get everyone to start gardening again. The guy next door might be growing cucumbers, this guy growing lettuce, all just working together, trading products, bringing people back together… Knowing who your neighbors are.”
For now, Healthy Futures Farm will be that neighbor, growing cucumbers and lettuce, garlic scapes, nutrient dense celery, hearty squash, watermelons – you name it. Averyl and her husband do essentially everything by hand. It’s a lot of work, but it’s worth it. It’s their passion.
“It’s like that saying… you know you’re in love when you know the words of a love song. I feel like that about what I do. I’m living the dream in a country. Just getting to be out here…” she says as she looks all around and takes in what she’s built.
“Once you get the farming bug, you’ve got the farming bug. Just knowing how people grow things. It’s awesome… and my kids know this is where they’re gonna be. To know that my grandson is going to be here, growing food, changing how things happen. That’s pretty cool.”
2018 Healthy Futures Artisan & Farmers Market Dates To Remember
June 6th: Opening Market
The Healthy Futures Artisan & Farmers Market is set to ring in the 2018 market season! This season’s line up is growing by the week. Come by and support local farmers and artisans while supplying your family with locally grown produce, meats, jams, honey, body care items and 1 of a kind home decor. Some confirmed vendors are…
Stony Creek Farm and Grass Fed Beef
Shoplittlesprouts – handmade items for the whole family
Sampson Farm
Off The Grid 4H
Healthy Futures Farm
The Enduring Gift
Also still accepting vendor applications!
August 8th: Farmers Market Week
Come celebrate FARMER’S MARKET WEEK at the Healthy Futures Artisan & Farmers Market! This season’s line up is growing by the week. Come by and support local farmers and artisans while supplying your family with locally grown produce, meats, jams, honey, body care items and 1 of a kind home decor. Some confirmed vendors are…
Stony Creek Farm and Grass Fed Beef
Shoplittlesprouts – handmade items for the whole family
Sampson Farm
Off The Grid 4H
Healthy Futures Farm
The Enduring Gift
Also still accepting vendor applications!
October 31st: Harvest Festival
Learn more online or stop by and say hello. Healthy Futures Farm wants to see, meet, and feed you!
Healthy Futures Farm
528 American Legion Highway
Westport, MA 02790
Hours:
Farm stand daily: Tuesday-Sunday – 11:00am to 6:00pm
Wednesday Farmer’s Market on-site at farm with six vendors
Sunday Pop-up Market at NB Boys and Girls Club 11:00am-3:00pm (166 Jenney Street)
Website: guide.farmfreshri.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/healthyfuturesfarm
New Bedford Guide is a proud consumer of one of Healthy Futures Farm’s CSA’s (Community Supported Agriculture). As a consumer, you pay a flat rate and pick up a weekly share. Broken down, the cost is about $15 per week…and get this – each week, one CSA share yields something similar to this one we received:
- 6 ears of corn
- 1 pattypan squash
- 1 summer squash
- 1 eggplant
- 1 bell pepper
- 6 hot peppers
- 1 cucumber
- 2 heirloom tomatoes
- 1 carton of small tomatoes
- 2 stalks of fennel
- 1 stalk of leeks
- 1 stalk of celery
- 1 head of lettuce
- 1 delicious watermelon!
