Local Hero Awardee: Quabbin Harvest

Since 2003, CISA has recognized farmers, institutions, businesses, and everyday community members whose work helps sustain local agriculture. Quabbin Harvest was presented with a 2025 Local Hero Award at CISA’s annual meeting on April 9, 2025, with these remarks:

Quabbin Harvest is a cooperative grocery store located in Orange – but, of course, it’s a lot more than that. It began as a vegetable share program in 2009, officially incorporated as a coop in 2011, and opened its grocery storefront in 2014.

The grocery business is tough – especially when you’re located in the North Quabbin region, which is made up of small towns, many of which have higher poverty rates than the counties they belong to as a whole. But this was not a group of grocers looking for the most lucrative place to open a store. This was a group of people who are grounded in the North Quabbin who wanted to make healthy local food more available to their own community, who wanted to help address hunger for their neighbors, and who wanted economic life in the center of Orange. Being rooted there means that the people who built this up, and who continue to work to make it viable, understand the specific needs and challenges and benefits and richness of doing this work in the place that they are doing it.

Quabbin Harvest has operated on the edge throughout its entire history. This is a scrappy business, and when I talked with the Operations Team, they told me that they really run on a day-to-day basis. The store has been close to closing at times – most notably in early 2020, when they put out a call for support that their community stepped up to meet. Soon after, COVID brought a wave of interest in smaller, local businesses that also helped bring the store back from the edge.

And still, even with the financial difficulty of what they are trying to do – they are there, doors open, a hub for local food in the North Quabbin region. In 2024, they distributed over 4000 subsidized shares to low-income residents, including 1700 HIP-supported vegetables shares, 1200 fruit shares, and 700 Senior FarmShares in partnership with CISA. And they continue to be responsive to the needs of their community: when the state cut the HIP benefit in December of last year, they offered a smaller share size so people who relied on that program could still participate.

We are looking at another period when supports for low-income people, and our communities as a whole, especially from the federal government, are likely to be reduced. When I talked with Cathy Stanton, longtime Board member, she shared that Quabbin Harvest is a kind of model for how to operate when you don’t have enough. She said, “you need friends, and sometimes you need friends with money, or with skills. We need each other. The spirit that our staff and shoppers bring to the store is what gives us the heart to hang on.”

I want to add one other piece from my conversation with the the Quabbin Harvest team. I asked them what else they would want people to know about their store, and Mary Ellen, who is a longtime volunteer, immediately started talking about the delicious food that comes out of their kitchen, and everyone else piped up with their favorite thing, and soon they were swapping stories about the singalongs that happen in the kitchen before the store opens, and it was a reminder that while they have undertaken a difficult task with high stakes for the communities they serve, it’s about food, which brings pleasure, and joy, and connection.

So for bringing a community based, local food focused grocery store to the North Quabbin, for focusing on making good food available to every member of the community, and for their flexible, tenacious, and joyful approach to it all, CISA is honored to present Quabbin Harvest with a Local Hero award.