The LOEB Fellowship

Eastie Farm is a community nonprofit founded by Kannan and his neighbors to pursue climate justice, food security, and community resilience through urban agriculture, education, and the building of an equitable local food system. They began small in 2015 by reclaiming a long-abandoned lot on Sumner Street as a place to gather and grow food. In the years following, the Eastie Farm volunteers preserved and revitalized more unused land around the neighborhood as educational urban pocket farms.

Remarkably, through the Covid lockdown, in addition to serving 5000 meals per week to community members, the group funded and built the first zero-emissions geothermal greenhouse in New England. They operate the greenhouse along with 7 growing spaces, two of which they own. In these properties, they offer experiential environmental education programs for school children, train teenagers for green jobs, and bring local fresh food to neighbors of all economic levels through a Community Supported Agriculture partnership with regional producers.

Now 10 years old, Eastie Farm has both remarkable accomplishments and significant challenges, making it an ideal subject for the Day of Service. With his tour of the neighborhood, Kannan established the context for a one day workshop to envision the next decade for the institution and its campus.

The workshop had three complementary objectives. First was site planning for the Eastie Farm “campus” to accommodate existing and proposed program activities. Second was “Making the Invisible Visible”: Eastie Farm is a demonstration site for sustainable energy innovation, yet its most critical piece of infrastructure, the geothermal well used for heating and cooling, is invisible. How could it be better explained and broadcast to a larger audience?

The third objective was to meet an upcoming application deadline for funding through the Massachusetts Leading by Example Program, in support of the state’s aggressive clean energy and greenhouse gas emission reduction targets.

Kannan situated these objectives within the important trends in this gateway neighborhood of Boston. East Boston is uniquely vulnerable to threats of climate change – especially coastal and inland flooding. The population is growing, with in-migration continuing, while the unique geography has attracted more affluent residents. Further, significant commercial growth promises to advance East Boston’s position as a regional job center, heightening its appeal.

A Multi-year Perspective

From its start, Eastie Farm’s goal has been nothing less than to change the food system: to have people understand where their food comes from, how it gets from the point of production to their tables, and how it should be prepared. This holistic approach is as much about education and building community as it is about putting food in people’s mouths and can help facilitate broader discussions about neighborhood sustainability and resilience in the face of climate change and gentrification.

At 10 years old, Eastie Farm, in the words of one workshop participant, is moving into “adolescence,” with the growing pains and decisions that come with maturation. A critical question is how big Eastie Farm wants to be in terms of staffing and programming and how to secure a reliable stream of funding for the long term.

After a bountiful lunch provided by Bono Restaurant, a partner that uses Eastie Farm produce, participants got to work. Two vectors quickly emerged: one would have Eastie Farm expand both physically and institutionally, with more sites and an even more expansive mission. This supports the most ambitious approach to effecting “systemic” change in how Boston approaches food security and sustainability. The other vector would have Eastie Farm mature in place, refining its current operation with relatively modest expansions to its physical plant.

The two vectors are more a matter of phasing and opportunity than competing choices. Kannan has done a remarkable thing in founding and shepherding Eastie Farm to its current state through an incremental and opportunistic approach.
(Strategic squatting! Shipping containers as hydroponic and mushroom farms!)

At this point it is important to have a plan with short, medium, and long term goals that can adapt to circumstances and opportunities.

For that reason, the group recommended that Eastie Farm apply for a Loeb Fellowship Alumni Council Grant to bring together alumni with experience in institutional capacity building and fundraising to augment the Day of Service emphasis on physical planning and design.

Designing and Expanding

There was much consensus about the broadest recommendations. Working independently, each of the four breakout groups recognized the NE-SW axis that organizes the main site, proposing strategic landscape interventions of plantings and paths to make this underlying structure more apparent. The campus is surrounded by several privately owned, underutilized properties, presenting an opportunity to engage the property owners in mutually beneficial initiatives. While it was recommended that Eastie leadership begin exploratory discussions, one participant advocated “guerrilla” interventions: ask – and keep asking – for temporary use of the adjacent properties; plant in the boundaries.

For example, the property that abuts the greenhouse is an overgrown lot with a large billboard at the height of the nearby expressway. Planting the lot with food crops would give the farm frontage on a public street and increase its visibility, while also facilitating small truck deliveries. In the short term, the current owner will have a better looking property. In the longer term, it might be the site of another building for an expanded Eastie Farm.

The most ambitious scheme would invite all the abutters to collectively rethink the entire mid-block. Improving this space would add value to all the properties by increasing development that either participates in Eastie Farm programing or is independent, such as Accessory Dwelling Units. The necessary special zoning regulations or some form of new redevelopment zone could be a model to improve other underutilized mid-block areas in Boston.

One significant vacant lot is controlled by Boston Public Schools for an as-yet-undetermined purpose. In one enterprising vision, a new school building on the property would engage with Eastie Farm with respect to its siting and design as well as with its curriculum, enabling an expansion of classes on urban agriculture and lab studies.

The intensive half day discussions of the Day of Service permitted only cursory treatment of some important topics, like fundraising. Participants discussed the benefits of a “Food Hub” designation by the US Department of Agriculture, which could provide access to an extensive array of USDA grant programs. There are also grant programs administered by the State Departments of Agriculture, Health, Human Services, and Economic Development.

Kathy Fox ‘02 met with Kannan and board member Alex Graora after the workshop to brainstorm additional funding opportunities, like Donor Advised Funds and a “friends to friends” strategy that can build Eastie Farm’s base of supporters, donors, volunteers and champions. Targeted Internships for college students could provide specific development project assistance in producing house parties, researching high net worth individuals and companies that may be interested in Eastie Farm’s mission, and assembling grant proposals under Alex’s supervision.

As Eastie Farm outgrows its current site plan, any expansion will be informed by resources as well as by the degree to which the organization can benefit by having a dispersed presence. A follow-up workshop can identify the most compelling options for the existing site and compare them with adding another site for the CSA. Adding a location would solve the logistical challenges of trucks and storage for a growing CSA program while allowing the original site to focus on youth and workforce development, demonstration farming, geothermal education, and community gatherings.

Loeb Participants

Kathleen Dorgan ’02, Jeremiah Ellison ’26, Pedro Evora ’26, Kathleen Fox ’02, Washington Fajardo ’19, Andrea Filippone ’08 Affiliate, Tessa Huxley ’87, Maria-Mercedes Jaramillo ’24, Barbara Knecht ’93, Ken Kruckmeyer ’82, Rob Lane ’09, Pallavi Mande ’17, Matthew Mazzotta ’18, Virginia Prescott ’02, Lynn Richards ’13, Jacek Smolicki ’26, Eli Spevack ’14, Rob Stein ’94, Jim Stockard ’78, Paloma Strelitz ’20, Andy Summers ’26, Julia Thayne ’26, Peter Vanderwarker ’97, Olly Wainwright ’26

See the full Day of Service report

Photo credits: Pallavi Mande, Washington Fajardo, Rob Lane, Barbara Epstein, Google Earth