One of the projects I planted during the winter that is sprouting this spring is setting up my church (Burlington Presbyterian as a farm share distribution point for Farmer Dave’s farm share. I participated in his farm share last year at the Lawrence pickup location (conveniently located in my building!), but changing jobs meant living too far away to pick it up.
We’ve been talking about stewardship a lot lately in church. Sometimes the word “stewardship” is a churchy way of saying “We need more money.” This is often true. But true stewardship means a lot more than that. It means taking care of the people who bring the mission of a church to life. It means fostering the connection and feeling of belonging with everyone who is a part of our church family. It means carefully looking at how the church’s financial resource are spent, as well as how they come in. It also means having careful stewardship of the world entrusted to our care.
This drive to stewardship is therefore affecting things big and small across our church. We had already done some things. For example,we use fair trade coffee, use CFLs where possible, avoid paper/plastic dishes, recycle religiously (get it?), and offer our parking lot for commuter parking with public transit. But we’re trying to take it the next step: installing timed thermostats (apparently we have high voltage something-or-others that make this more complicated) and looking to see if we can install solar panels on our beautiful big roof (if there’s anyone out there who’d like to help us with this drop me a line!).
Offering fresh, locally grown, sustainable produce to the community seemed like an excellent way to contribute to the cause of Stewardship, while also creating a relationship with people who might otherwise not know our church exists. Furthermore, for any shares that aren’t picked up (because the person is on vacation or forgets or something) we’ll be donating those shares to the Burlington Food Pantry. Fresh produce is one of the hardest things for a food pantry to offer.
Anyway, I’ve been pleased and amazed at how the distribution has come together. We’ve ironed out nearly all the kinks, and are now accepting registrations! We’re in a big push now. We need to have a minimum number of sign-ups for the site, or it won’t work. So if you or a loved one lives in the Burlington Massachusetts area and love fresh produce, sustainably grown and harvested the morning it’s delivered to you, please consider signing up!
