We have been very fortunate over the past three years to host the Access TCA Volunteer Day here at Community Harvest Project. They are a large exhibit and event marketing company based right here in the Blackstone Valley in Whitinsville. This team of volunteers always comes out with great spirit and energy to help their community. Their creative approach and considerable amount of effort in planning for the day and even doing advance work to prepare is greatly appreciated. This year they were able to help us with a list of projects around the farm that we would not otherwise be able to complete.
They spent their day on the farm trellising cucumbers, replanting eggplant that was washed out by flooding, twining tomatoes, weeding, and cleaning out the small greenhouse. Because of them the thousands of volunteers that visit our North Grafton farms will have access to a picnic grove of new and newly repaired and painted tables. They also helped us with some major repairs on the barn deck, making it safer for all of our visitors. Their gift and talent of the addition of passive education signs will come to life around the farm in the coming months. This project would not have been possible without their expertise and the design execution of Eric Anderson. In visiting the barn you may notice that we have new graphics in the back of the great room and on the hallway walls. With innovative techniques they were able to print life size photos on plastic and fabric to help us provide a very inviting environment for our guests.
We would like to applaud and thank Access TCA for their amazing gift of time, resources and volunteer labor. Their efforts to make us shine are greatly appreciated. This team was able to not only help us farm for the day but also used their talents to advance our mission by donating services that we would not be able to fit into our budget. A special thanks goes out to Jamie Levine for her coordination of these efforts, Dean Cerrati and Jess Thibault for making the day go smoothly, Phil Oikle and his band of magicians for their amazing craftsmanship and the rest of the Access TCA Team for their support and energy during their visit to our farm. We really appreciate your support of our efforts and of our community.
It may be the heat of summer, but CHP is already gearing up for our 
After the 5K trail race, make sure to join us at the Harvest Home Festival (11am – 3pm) for a day of family fun. Shoot apples over 500 feet out of our pressurized cannons and watch a trebuchet competition hurl pumpkins over 400 feet down our fields. There will be plenty of live music, craft beer, local food trucks, homemade desserts, kids crafts and bounce houses! New this year in our Picnic Grove will be an open campfire with hay bales for relaxing and s’mores available for roasting. We hope to see you there!
Even a little means a lot. It only takes a small commitment from each of us to make a big difference on our farms for the year. 
Things on the Grafton farm are going well, despite the cold, wet, and slow start to the season. After our broccoli and cabbage suffered through standing water and chilly temperatures, we have been surprised by a healthy and large harvest in both of those crops. The blueberries are steadily coming out of the field as a sweet treat to our recipients, and the summer squash and zucchini are strong contenders as always. Our heat loving crops are finally getting the temperatures they love, so hopefully the tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers will start producing soon. We have been using our cultivation tractors to keep up with the weed pressure between the crop rows, and the fields have never looked so clean. Come drop by to see the difference!
We are more than halfway through our Summer Sustainable Internship Program and when they are not out working with volunteers or doing farm tasks like weeding they have had plenty of extracurricular activities to round out the summer. They are regularly meeting with staff members to learn about each individual role within our organization, participating in healthy eating modules and learning to prepare healthy snacks. Several of them expressed an interest in learning more about funding which has led to the entire group learning how to write a grant request as a project under Cordie’s direction. They have visited the Worcester County Food Bank for a tour and more in depth understanding of the hunger relief network. They are working on a special project to research the best method that we should implement for composting on the farm. They visited the Clark University Freight Farm to learn about growing hydroponically and visited Compare Grocery to get an understanding of produce needs in a diverse community. They have also spent time working with the YouthGrow Team from the Regional Environmental Council on their urban farm and will reciprocate by teaching their team all about CHP when they visit our farm. With several more weeks and quite a few more visits planned this team is surely getting a full view of all of the issues involved in supporting hunger relief efforts in our community.
Community Harvest Project Blog 