Our 29th(!) @realfarmercare recipient - Maya Marie Stansberry @mayamariez Assistant Farm Manager & Food Ed. Coordinator at KCC Urban Farm @kccurbanfarm in Brooklyn, NYC.
She writes, “KCC Urban Farm @kccurbanfarm is a 1/4 acre of land on a college campus that has been growing food for almost 9 years. It was originally a for-profit farm growing food for local restaurants but after Hurricane Sandy, it got turned over to the college and now all the produce we grow is given to the students, who are predominately low-income, black and brown, immigrant, and/or first generation college students. I got involved with the farm in 2012, about a year after it initially was established, and I’ve been there ever since, first as a student, who graduated, went to a farm apprenticeship, and then I came back and have been one of the three main staff who train our student farm crew. The first time I stepped foot on the farm I was in awe of its existence, because I’ve wanted to be a farmer since I was a little kid, having grown food with my grandparents in their backyards. Some of the challenges these past years have been adjusting to the climate crisis as an organic farm, and maintaining funding for staffing as well as the student programming we provide alongside farming operations, since the farm is a non-profit. Despite those challenges, the farm is a place that I feel deeply responsible for caring for alongside our small crew. While I have many interests and skills, farming is something I see myself doing for the rest of my life, because it is a practice in giving and receiving and stewarding and understanding life, which is vital to what I feel is my purpose in life.
A deeply renewing self-care activity for me is getting my hair done by someone else, since I do my own hair 99.9% of the time. Going to the salon and getting a silk press is so nice, but it’s expensive and not in any way practical with farming, but my mood is so different when I have freshly deep conditioned and styled hair!” #realfarmercare#kccurbanfarm#womenwhofarm