As furloughs and layoffs skyrocketed at the peak of the pandemic, Kara Boettger found herself struggling to keep food on the table.
“Things were tough, and there were so many unknowns,” the 49-year-old Mattapan resident said. “Any extra help that was available was really a blessing.”
Living off unemployment checks, Boettger turned to her neighborhood farmers market, a weekly event at Mattapan’s Fowler Clark Epstein Farm that offers coupons off locally grown produce.
“Having the extra coupons was really quite a blessing, I'm definitely very grateful for that,” Boettger said. “I'm blessed to have wonderful neighbors like this that work so hard to really support their community.”
With funding from the City of Boston and other contributors, Fowler Clark — as it’s more commonly known — provided 15,000 pounds of produce to the community last year through meal deliveries and donations.
When the pandemic hit, the farm reduced its team of 750 volunteers to just ten, and questioned the safety of staying open at all, according to Patricia Spence, president of the Urban Farming Institute, the nonprofit that owns the farm.
“The first hurdle was, do we do a farm stand? Are we letting people on the campus? And the answer became obvious,” Spence said. “So many people couldn't get to the supermarket. So, yes, we had to be open.”
At the farmers market every Friday from June to October, customers like Beottger and Willie Jackson, who lives across the street, can use city-funded $20 coupons to pay for their produce orders.
“I live on a fixed income. So this really helps, it really helps,” said Jackson, 69. “Food in a grocery store is very expensive today, and they don't have a senior service for people, especially people my age. So it's a blessing to shop over here.”
Food insecurity increased by 55% in Massachusetts from 2019 to 2020, according to a report from the Greater Boston Food Bank. Neighborhoods with a majority of residents of color like Mattapan were disproportionately affected.
“You couldn't even get on the bus at that time. You probably could get to a corner store, but even they were having issues getting food,” Spence said. “What we learned is that the food chain just disintegrated during COVID. So to be honest, we were the place to be.”
Originally cultivated in 1786, the half-acre of land named for its three previous owners had fallen into disrepair and neglect for decades, until a $3.8 million restoration project led by nonprofit Historic Boston Inc., in 2013.
Fowler Clark stands out as a Black-owned farm in a majority Black neighborhood.
Nationwide, the number of Black farmers has shrunk from 14% in 1920 to less than two percent in 2021, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A Biden administration plan to redress racism in farming by providing $4 billion in debt relief to farmers of color was blocked by white farmers and a federal judge last month.
Fowler Clark is one of roughly a dozen urban farms in the city, and sets itself apart by offering African and Caribbean produce that can be hard to find at a general grocery store.
“When we were growing seedlings last year, the thing that flew out of the greenhouse was the Trinidadian Pimento pepper. I never even saw it, it left that quickly, and once one person found out we had it, others came,” Spence said. “We have a unique opportunity to provide the actual produce that people want based on the culture that they're coming from.”
When the farm started producing again, people from the community were brought in to lead the effort, according to Spence.
“Our mission is: we don't just grow food,” she said, “we grow people.”
People like Bobby Walker, a farm training manager from Roxbury who now lives at the farm site in Mattapan.
“None of this was here when I was growing up,” Walker said. “Like, a farm in a city? That’s what I get a lot. A farm in a city?!”
Every morning, Walker passes on his knowledge to a small team of trainees working on the farm’s five plots throughout Mattapan.
Walker says he's seen his volunteers — kids from Roxbury and Dorchester — come and put their hands in the dirt and find meaning in the work.
“I've seen adults change their character by being here, not just kids,” Walker said. “I've seen people change their whole life around.”
Talia McCray moved to Mattapan just before the pandemic locked everyone in their homes. She joined the farm as a trainee in September of last year and used the farm as a way to establish ties with her new neighbors.
“It's nice to be able to come here and, one, not always feel like I'm leaning on like the one or two humans that I know here,” McCray said, “and just expanding my community and my network and just knowing new people and places and things.”
WATCH: A Boston Neighborhood Relies On An Urban Farm As It Recovers From COVID-19
