By Ana Strayton, WFCF Farm Stand & CSA Distribution Coordinator

Work Share Program I’d like to start first by highlighting our work shares in the barn this season - Joy, Yuki, Nick, Luna, Siria, Yan, and Sarah. They were all incredible additions to our farm team and it was a joy working with them. For those of you who are shareholders, I’m sure you enjoyed talking to them during CSA distributions about recipe ideas and happenings on the farm. The work share program in the barn continues to be a strong way to incorporate members of the community into the farm while providing staffing for the CSA distributions. Sometimes we are lucky to have work shares come back for multiple years, like Joy who has been a work share on Wednesdays for over 10 years now! While it’s great to have work shares come back, there are always a few new additions each year and it is always wonderful to welcome them into the WFCF community. I could not have been happier with our team in the barn this year, we had a great time each week and everyone worked so hard. So a huge thank you to all of our barn work shares this season! 

Farm Store Products & Produce I wanted to talk about the Farm Stand and some of the progress and improvements we’ve made there this season. Over the past three years we have been working on expanding the products we offer in the barn as well as adding fresh produce. This year I feel like I was really able to expand our product line and offer a more diverse product selection in the barn all from local producers across New England. I am continuing to search for gluten free, vegan, and vegetarian products to accommodate our community and always working to create a diverse price range so that the store is accessible to all. If there’s anything you really loved that we had in the Farmstand this season or something that you would like to see please let me know, I would love to hear your feedback! A new addition to the Farm Stand this season was consistently offering fresh produce for sale. I was able to work primarily with Langwater Farm in Easton, MA to source weekly produce for the barn but also brought in seasonal extras from other farms when possible. We’ve maintained our relationship with Autumn Hills Orchard to source early summer fruit and apples through the fall and worked with them to offer a Fruit CSA to our customers again this year. We have also maintained our partnership with Rancatore’s to create farm fresh ice cream flavors with produce from WFCF fields and the Learning Garden, which has been a really fun process and great addition to the store for our guests. Currently in the barn we have orange fennel ice cream and raspberry basil sorbet. In the next few weeks we will have butternut squash ice cream and cranberry sage sorbet for the holidays! We have expanded the store hours the winter season and will be open Wednesday - Saturday until just before Thanksgiving! 

SNAP/HIP/FMNP Finally, I wanted to speak briefly about accessibility to the store and what we are doing to create a place for folks outside of our immediate CSA community to shop with us. As I mentioned before, increasing the range of prices in the products that we offer is an ongoing goal for us, since buying from small producers can often be expensive - offering fresh produce is also part of this goal. Mainly though I wanted to talk about SNAP and other coupon and stipend programs. WFCF has been a SNAP certified vendor for several years now, SNAP is the supplemental nutrition program through the state where low income families and individuals can receive a monthly stipend toward food. Most recently, this season, the Farm Stand has become certified to accept Farmers Market Nutrition Program coupons, this is a coupon program through our neighbors as Mass Farmers Markets. The coupons cover the WIC (Women, Infant & children) and Senior coupons. These are coupon booklets that are distributed during the summer through women’s and senior centers and are valid for fresh produce. During the season we were able to coordinate with Waltham’s women and senior centers during coupon distribution days to promote the Farm Stand as a place to use their coupons and received quite a few through that initiative. I look forward to working with them more and continuing to expand those partnerships in our community. Finally, I’m excited to announce that WFCF has been selected in the most recent round of funding to become a HIP certified vendor for the 2023 season. HIP stands for the “healthy incentives Program” and is connected to the SNAP program. When a customer uses their SNAP benefits at a HIP certified market when purchasing fruits and veggies they automatically receive that money back onto their SNAP card. It’s a There has been limited funding and a competitive application process in past years so I am thrilled that WFCF is now able to be part of this program.