Local Hero Awardee: Golonka Farm
Since 2003, CISA has recognized farmers, institutions, businesses, and everyday community members whose work helps sustain local agriculture. Golonka Farm was presented with a 2026 Local Hero Award at CISA’s annual meeting on April 14, 2026, with these remarks:
Jim Golonka’s farming story starts when he was one month old, because that is when his parents, Mary and Bernie Golonka, bought a small farm on routes 5&10 in Whately, just north of the Hatfield line. Mary and Bernie had both grown up in western Mass, but neither came from a farming background. Jim says that his father learned how to farm from magazines and textbooks and help from neighbors, and originally the family grew tobacco and cucumbers to sell wholesale, the cucumbers mostly going up the road to Oxford pickle. Back then, Bernie worked at Greenfield Tap and Die, and Mary raised the 8 Golonka kids and managed the family finances tightly enough that they paid off the farm quickly – a memorable landmark for Jim because that is when the kids got to have soda for the first time.
When Jim grew up and got involved with the farm, he adapted the model his father had established at first – he kept growing cucumbers for oxford pickle, added sweet corn, and started selling a bigger variety of vegetables from a little table on 5&10. In 1984, Jim was on a trip to Vermont when he spotted Jan at a pub and asked her to dance. She moved down the Whately a year and a half later, and not long after, in the early 90s, the family decided to build a permanent farm stand and invest more into retail sales.
Over the decades, Jim and Jan kept their off-farm jobs, with Jim working as a plumber for 40 years and Jan holding a variety of positions at a bank, at the Daily Hampshire Gazette, and at a community health center. They raised their kids, Emma and Steven, on the farm, and Emma remains very involved from Colorado, where she now lives. Steven strategically stayed busy with summer sports as a kid and now works as an electrical engineer in Boston.
This recounting of the farm’s history doesn’t quite reveal what is special about Golonka Farm, and even as I describe it, it’ll be quiet.
The mission at Golonka Farm is straightforward. Jan told me, “we want people to come to our farmstand and feel welcome and safe.” Jim said, “We want to offer a good quality product at an affordable price.”
For decades, the family has been reliably, thoughtfully growing food to feed their community, welcoming people to their farm through the farmstand, stewarding their land, and building connections between their farm and the broader community. Jan told me that when they are training the summer staff who work at their farmstand they always say, “this isn’t just a job selling vegetables. You’re building part of the community – people want to know who you are, they want to know us and to know who grows their food.”
This takes the form of countless small interactions over more than three decades. Jim told me that people will ask about specific crops, so he’ll grow them and see how it goes – kohlrabi being one example that some customers asked for, so they gave it a shot, and they marketed them to skeptical shoppers as “a dollar’s worth of adventure!” to try them. Now they grow kohlrabi every year. They do a lot of small, custom orders so customers can reliably get what they need: 15 jalapenos, or a couple pounds of green tomatoes. Customers will ask about their growing practices, and Jim will talk with them about Integrated Pest Management, and how the farm uses compost and cover crops. Local schools or churches or community groups know that they can ask for donations, and they donate as needed.
These days, Jim and Jan, along with their daughter Emma, are putting a lot of work into planning for the farm’s future. Jan told me that the absolute top priorities for the whole family is to keep the farm going, and to keep the farm stand thriving. She said, “our main thing is that when we make a change, we don’t want our customers to even notice.”
So, for decades of hard work, reliably serving as a source of great fresh food and community connection, and careful planning for the future of the farm, I’m proud to present a Local hero Award to Golonka Farm.
