How do their gardens grow?
Farm benefits the homeless
Boston Harbor seems an unlikely spot for farming and beekeeping, but Long Island, off Quincy, is home to the city's only certified organic farm, which produces crates of honey and nearly 30,000 pounds of fresh vegetables every year.
The location is not the only thing unique about this 2.5-acre farm. The farmers are homeless men and women, and the produce they tend - including 15 to 20 heirloom varieties of tomatoes, plus eggplant, beets, and collards - will end up on the dinner tables at the city's largest homeless shelter.
The farm at Long Island Shelter in some ways resembles the New England town farm of the 1800s, which provided food for orphans, widows, and other poor people, according to Don Franczyk of Baystate Organic Certifiers, which certifies growers and livestock producers in the Northeast.
Created in 1996 and run by the nonprofit Friends of Boston's Homeless and the Boston Public Health Commission's Homeless Services, the farm is the brainchild of Mayor Thomas M. Menino. Each year, 80 percent of the farm's produce goes to feeding the more than 800 homeless people the shelter serves daily, which saves the shelter about $34,000 a year, according to Mariann Bucina, the friends' executive director. The farm also sells produce and honey at markets in Quincy, Boston's South End, Long Island, and at the Boston Public Health Commission. Proceeds (which amount to about $12,000 each year) help cover the farm's operating expenses, Bucina said.
The farm has one restaurant customer, too - Chris Douglass, chef and owner of Icarus and Ashmont Grill. "It's an organic farm in Boston. It's just so cool," said Douglass. "I've been a real advocate of local for a long, long time. The stuff is really great.
"We were surprised the other day," Douglass said. "Unbeknownst to me, [the farm coordinator] dropped off a box of green garlic," he said, adding that it's a "real spring item." Douglass said he was planning to throw it on the wood grill and serve it that night as "the lead item" with a Spanish Romesco sauce.
The homeless, of course, benefit from the fresh produce they eat, and "why wouldn't they get organic produce?" asked Jean-Claude Bourrut, the farm's coordinator.
"Basically, they need it more than anybody else. With good health and good nutrition, they have the ability to get back on their feet," he said. "That's one part of the puzzle. My part of the puzzle."
The homeless also gain job training and life skills from the various tasks they perform, he said.
"There are therapeutic benefits to working outside," Bourrut said, adding that for many of the workers who are recovering from drug and alcohol addictions, farming can help teach such skills as delayed gratification.
Antonio Morales, 52, has been homeless for a year and has worked on the farm for almost two full seasons, preparing the soil, planting seeds, harvesting and selling the produce to farmers markets.
"Planting something and seeing it grow from nothing was like a sense of freedom," he said. "I learned to get closer to people, get closer to earth," said Morales, who has farmed alongside volunteer groups from Milton Academy, Boston Collegiate Charter School, and
The shelter trains about 10 "client workers" on the farm each season - the workers are paid minimum wage, and participants in the shelter's job-training program in the culinary arts track can learn to prepare and cook with fresh vegetables. The goal, Bourrut said, is to help the homeless learn job skills that will help them move beyond the shelter system, gain permanent jobs and housing, and lead independent lives. One "graduate" of the farm program even started his own landscaping program, he said.
So far, no one has volunteered to help Bourrut tend the six beehives of several hundred thousand Russian bees, he said. (The bees, a hardy strain, are primarily valued for pollinating the crops; honey production is a side benefit.) Last week, at its annual gala, the Friends of Boston's Homeless launched an adopt-a-hive program, asking donors to pay $250 to support a hive for the season.
Farming, Bourrut concedes, "is hard work. It's not for everyone. It's hot, buggy, dirty." And the clients who work on the Long Island farm don't necessarily go into farming. "That's not the goal of the farm." Instead, he said, the goal is to teach the workers skills such as showing up on time, being responsible, and finishing tasks. And the payoffs for the client workers, he said, are tremendous.
"They're amazed at what they can produce from a few pounds of seeds."
