Everything We Remembered Under the Harvest Moon

Last night, under a waning Harvest Moon, our team—staff, board, volunteers, committee members, and key partners—gathered to mark the close of another season at Pitney Meadows.

Celebration is key to our success. When you work as hard as our small team does, it can be easy to get moving so fast that you forget to reflect. Capturing all we do in an easily digestible way is sometimes hard, too. So, last night, I decided to throw format out the window and just call out every win I could remember from this epic season. I am positive this list is not exhaustive, and we will have fun remembering other wins as we continue to reflect.

I hope sharing this scattered list here might help you also see the profound impact we are all creating here in our community, and to share in calling out each hand that touched these wins. 

This year, we:

• Launched a successful 100-member Community Compost Program, receiving regional recognition and grant support as a model system
• Offered 13 weeks of abundant CSA harvests to over 90 members
• We were featured in over 30 press pieces, including NYHealth Beat and two stunning magazine editorials
• Provided a safe haven for the tri-colored bumblebee and other rare species we’re lucky enough to discover
• Received funding from Healthcare Without Harm to expand our Food as Medicine (FAM) work
• Piloted FAM at three low-income housing sites, supported by volunteers and our collaborative workgroup
• Extended produce donations to Saratoga County’s western edge to the Town of Day and also to the Greenfield Food Pantry
• Discovered and imagined the future of the back 35 acres
• Pulled off a beautiful, mission-aligned Fire Feast
• Watched kids study snowflakes under microscopes in January
• Deduped 9 million records in Little Green Light (this stat might be an overstatement, but it felt like 9 million)
• Turned grumpy teenagers into poets with the SSHS English nature journaling class
• Kept our grounds beautiful and accessible through three seasons
• Increased Farm Stand sales by 40%
• Completed key infrastructure projects: automated greenhouses, the corner connect (9 years in the making), and high tunnel resheeting
• Swam in Lake Champlain
• Kicked off the design of our future farmhouse
• Finally got SNAP approved for both Farm Stand and CSA
• Revised and adopted a new employee handbook and bylaws
• Welcomed and supported 340 community gardeners
• Offered miles of trail laps for cross-country runners and future champions
• Have a full fall production plan for the first time
• Engaged the public in a year-long strategic planning process
• Installed interpretive signage, with wayfinding on the way
• Went viral with a new farmer video
• More than doubled our team, welcoming seasonal staff and interns who made this place hum
• Welcomed hundreds of volunteers, communed with Phish phans who all shared the load
• Brought forward and made space for the ancient Indigenous language of this land—now present across the farm on signage read by thousands
• Offered community and sustenance to a mom and her kids after their husband and father was taken by ICE
• Flew kites, played games, and left our phones behind at our Summer Sunset Socials
• Continued offering healthcare and an employee assistance program, and took vacations
• Grieved together, celebrated a marriage, and are now about to welcome our newest Pitney baby!
• Shared meals, checked in on each other, asked about each other’s families
  

And we did all of this through both good days and hard ones. As a community, we consistently choose trust and repair over conflict. And I’m grateful for each and every one of you.

Tell us, what did we miss?

With gratitude for every hand, every heart, and every hope,
Brooke