Roots Rising, Pittsfield, MA
This summer, I had the privilege of working as an Education Intern for Roots Rising, a youth-development farming initiative based in Pittsfield, Mass. A non-profit organization created by Jessica Vecchia and Jamie Samowitz, Roots Rising is dedicated to empowering youth through food and farming by hiring Pittsfield teens to work on farms, in food pantries, and in community gardens in Berkshire County. Through Roots Rising, teens gain the skills necessary to join the workforce, while also learning about their local food systems and engaging in meaningful, transformational work. The youth development aspect, realized through opening and closing circles and games, teaches the teens how to problem solve, how to work toward a common goal, and how to persevere in the face of adversity. In addition to four other staff members, I worked in a team of 10-12 teens, of varying ages and backgrounds, but all hailing from the Pittsfield community.
My duties as an Education Intern were to forge close relationships with the teens and model a strong work ethic for them in the farms and pantries. My principal duty was to facilitate games before our morning fieldwork sessions, in order to wake their minds and bodies and ready them for the work day. I was also given permission to lead several workshops in any topic of my choice. After taking the issues and concerns of the current Crew into account (half of the teens identified as queer, LGBT+, etc.) I led a workshop on gender and sexuality identity. I introduced them to the concepts of gender roles and expectations and how they restrict our lives and make it harder for us to be ourselves. After allowing those to share their own experiences dealing with gender expectations, I introduced them to the concept of different gender and sexual identities, defining and explaining the different terms that comprise the LGBT experience. For many of the teens, it was the first time they were allowed to speak candidly, in a free space, about their own sexual and gender identities and it was rewarding to establish myself as a resource they could utilize whenever questions of sexual/gender identity arose.
I spent five weeks working for Roots Rising, five weeks under the hot, hot sun, in the rain, in the dirt, ankle deep in mud. It was, without a doubt, one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life. I grew so close to the teens I mentored as well as with my fellow staff members. Jess and Jamie were extraordinary supervisors; their passion for teen empowerment and food justice was so infectious the very first time I met them, and over the course of the summer, they proved themselves to be very supportive and loving individuals, goofy, fun-loving, and deeply nurturing. One of the main tenets of Roots Rising is community-building and I feel I got the full force of that. The Crew truly became a family and that was reflected in the bittersweet tears everyone cried on our last day together and the way we all exchanged contact information and promises to stay in touch. I grew close to one teen in particular, Kris, a kindhearted transgender boy. We spoke often of the difficulties of coming out to our families, of being true to ourselves, and navigating the world as openly queer people. The farmers we interacted with were similarly kind and very patient, a trait necessary to working with teens who are largely unfamiliar with farm work. Overall, I left Roots Rising with a deep love for the organization and those who run it, and with high hopes to one day collaborate with Jess and Jamie again.
Though Roots Rising primarily exists as a youth development program, empowering teens and teaching them how to hold jobs, it also exists to combat the problem of food insecurity in Pittsfield and the greater Berkshire area. Many of the farm sites we worked at, from Red Shirt Farm in Lanesborough to Abode Farm in New Lebanon, N.Y., are CSAs, or community-supported agricultures. CSAs are food production and distribution systems that directly connect consumers and farmers. Consumers, people living in the surrounding area, buy shares of the farmer’s harvest beforehand and receive a portion of the crop as they are harvested. In areas like Pittsfield and so many other parts of the country where access to affordable, healthy, and organic fruits and vegetables are scarce, CSAs are integral to keeping low-income communities fed. Roots Rising, by hiring out teens to local farms where their labor is so desperately needed, helps to counter the food insecurity that grips Pittsfield. Every week, the teens work at the local food pantry, Berkshire Dream Center, unloading the large truck of food coming from the Western Mass Food Bank and pack it into the pantry. We also visited Dower Square, a low-income apartment complex, and distributed food to those who needed it, with no questions asked. There, the teens answered the questions of what food security means and what it means to be an advocate of food justice. In this way, Roots Rising exists as an avenue for teens to explore the issues that affect them personally and participate in the ways that those problems are being resolved by members of their community, effectively becoming teen changemakers.
My time with Roots Rising has revitalized my interest in environmental justice and has encouraged me to continue pursuing environmental studies at Williams, with an increased focus on the perspective of low-income people of color. I plan to more closely connect my Africana Studies and Environmental Studies concentrations. My experience with this non-profit has also encouraged to look into non-profits as future places of employment post-grad. Most importantly, this internship has encouraged me to spend more time off-campus and in the Berkshire community. As a first year, I did not leave campus at all and I had little to no connection to the surrounding towns of North Adams and Pittsfield. I knew nothing about their history or their current politics or issues. I was surprised to learn that Pittsfield was suffering from food insecurity and that so many community efforts existed to try and rectify this. Roots Rising has inspired me to continue to escape the Purple Bubble and I hope to find more similar internships that will connect me to issues in the Berkshire Community.
As I continue to map out my future course selections at Williams, I am so grateful for this summer experience. To work at Roots Rising was a true privilege. I would like to thank Mr. Robert K. Kraft, Mr. Jonathan A. Kraft, and Mr. Joshua M. Kraft for this internship, as well as the ’68 Center for Career Exploration for all their help and support this summer. Their generosity has deeply impacted my understanding of the Berkshire community and allowed me to spend an amazing summer with an incredible organization, engaging in meaningful work for a great cause.
Megamenu Social