The beginning of a year invites reflection. Not only on what lies ahead, but on what has already been built.
We start each new season grounded in memory, grateful for the work carried out by many hands, and attentive to the ways that shared effort becomes shared life.
Last year, we grew more than food. We grew relationships across gardens and kitchens, partnerships across neighborhoods, and trust across tables where strangers became neighbors. Together, we stewarded land, recovered food that might otherwise have gone to waste, prepared meals with care, and shared nourishment with dignity. These acts may seem ordinary on their own, but together they formed something meaningful. They formed community.
What we built together was not simply a response to need. It was a practice. A commitment to showing up consistently. To believing that food can be a tool for justice, connection, and belonging. To trusting that when people gather around shared work and shared meals, something larger than any one of us takes shape.
As we step into a new year, we do so inspired by that shared impact. The gardens will rest and then awaken again. Kitchens will continue to hum with quiet purpose. Volunteers will return, new faces will join, and partnerships will deepen. The work ahead is not separate from the work behind us. It grows directly from it.
The year ahead asks the same simple and demanding question it always has: how will we care for one another?
Our answer remains rooted in the daily practice of growing, cooking, and sharing food in community. We will keep learning. We will keep listening. We will keep building a food system that reflects abundance rather than scarcity, relationship rather than isolation.
This work is never finished, but it is always worth doing. And it is never done alone.
The year ahead starts here.
Step in together.
