If you’ve ever visited the Community Harvest Project offices, then you’re familiar with the whirling dervish that is Brittany Grenon. Filled with energy, new ideas, and a passion for CHP that can’t be beat, Brittany worked tirelessly to build up our fundraising program. This past month Brittany transitioned out of her role at CHP, but not before accomplishing many great things!
One of her greatest achievements was bringing Salesforce to CHP. Salesforce has allowed us to digitize our volunteer sign-ups and scheduling, better track our donations, and reach out to our community in more ways than ever before. It now forms the backbone of our operations, and it’s hard to imagine our office operating any other way! Brittany also worked to build up our Harvest Home 5K event to over 200 runners, brought new life to our appeals and materials, and more. While we will miss her spunky presence in the office, we can’t wait to see she does next in her community.
When it came time to look for a new Development Manager, we decided to transition this role to full-time. As our organization continues to grow, so too have our fundraising needs. That’s where our newest team member, Carolyn Ambrose, comes in! Carolyn comes to us after several years of development work at The Hanover Theatre in downtown Worcester. Her experience, great sense of humor, and positive energy are already working their magic on our office.
Read below to learn more about Carolyn:
Q: Why did you choose to come to CHP?
A: I love CHP’s mission to improve access to healthy fruits and vegetables for those who need them most. My background is in development for a nonprofit organization that shares the same passion as CHP to create healthy and engaged communities through volunteering. I plan to personally engage individuals and corporations not only for donations and sponsorship opportunities but also with the help of the CHP team to offer them the invaluable experience and the wonderful feeling of doing good in the community. Doing both successfully will make my heart sing.
Q:What are you tackling in your first weeks here?
A: I’m enjoying learning all about the farming industry – it is absolutely fascinating! The team is so helpful, engaging and smart! And boy do they work hard, really hard!
Q: When you’re not at the barn, what activities do you enjoy?
A: When I’m not at the barn, you can find me on the beach in Cape Cod reading a book, skiing, hiking or walking, spending time with my family and friends or tending my own garden – I love to weed.
Q: What’s your favorite vegetable? How do you like to cook it?
A: I adore tomatoes smothered in mayo with salt and pepper! I also love them in my husband’s Italian gravy with garlic and fresh basil over pasta, it is to die for!
Read the rest of the March Sprout!
Our farmers have been hard at work this winter repairing equipment, pruning apple trees and creating crop plans in preparation of our upcoming growing season! In 2017, volunteers will help Community Harvest Project plant 256 rows of crops and care for 3,200 apple trees. 
Spring is here! That means the greenhouse is coming alive with sprouts, we’re prepping for volunteers, and planning spring programs. Our hallmark spring program happens over April vacation: Spring on the Farm! This is a 4-day vacation camp for 4th-7th graders, which takes place from 8:30am-2:30pm. Sign up your child for all four days for $190, or just pick the days that fit best in your schedule for $50/day. Spring on the Farm is open to residents of all towns. Activities are different each day, but all will focus on nutrition, hands-on cooking, plants, and the environment.
As with all of our education programs, in Spring on the Farm we focus on learning, tasting, and experimentation. Knowing what foods are healthy does little use if you don’t like to eat them! We will have a different theme every day to guide our tastings and recipes: protein, carbs, fat, and vitamins/minerals. We will learn the basics of each group, how to choose healthy options of each, and then taste and cook them. Campers are encouraged to try new things, retry things they’ve had before, try them cooked in new ways, and also make their own creations to ensure they find a way to prepare healthy foods that fits their tastes. We hope this inspires them to carry this personalization and ownership of healthy foods back to your kitchen!
We recently hosted an Alternative Break with students from Eastern Michigan University who were visiting Worcester County in order to learn more about food justice. These students took this time away from school to have meaningful discussion and immersion into the non-profit world in order to learn more about those who help to provide food to communities in need. During their time with us they helped to prepare the greenhouses for spring planting, helped us to get caught up on some backlogged office tasks and spent some time at the orchard helping to prepare mouse guards for our thousands of trees. In addition they visited several of our partner organizations to learn about the many facets of the challenging issues surrounding food insecurity. They were able to tour the Worcester County Food Bank, worked in the kitchen with Community Servings, helped stock the food pantry and assist some of the recipients of food relief at Jeremiah’s Inn and ate lunch at Café Reyes a program of the Hector Reyes House. 
These students represented all four classes from EMU, Stephen Elugbemi – 2017, Tamara Washington – 2017, Louise Barbosa – 2017, Joshua Plonka – 2017, Kenadi Jefferson – 2018, Nolan Peterson – 2019 and Mariah McHaffie – 2020. We truly enjoyed hosting this experience for them and feel lucky to have learned as much as they did from their impressions of the work that we do and the community in which we serve. We would like to give them a rousing round of applause for their interest in learning more about food justice and the non-profit world. They all showed great potential and desire to go back to their home communities to “Plant a Seed” and make a difference! 
Turnips are a New England staple that tend to get their moment in the fall as a component of hearty side dishes. However, there are varieties of turnips that can be found locally starting in early summer, such as Hakurei and Scarlet Queen, in addition to fall standards like Purple Top and Golden Ball. No matter what variety of turnip you’re preparing, you can use the greens to create a new dish. This recipe keeps it simple, and uses every last bit of your turnips. 
Community Harvest Project Blog 