Thank you so much for your continued support of Build Repair Grow (BRG) as we continue to navigate the challenges of 2020. The silver lining in this difficult year has been an outpouring of strength and resilience in our community, our partners, and in the many people who are helping this organization adapt and grow.
We are so grateful to those of you who are following our journey. Thank you for your support and well wishes! We’re glad to be able to share the progress we have made.
Build Repair Grow Stands with Black Lives Matter
We continue to affirm our sustained commitment to standing up for racial justice in solidarity with Black Lives Matter. The systemic and institutional racism in this country must stop. As a predominantly white-led organization, Build Repair Grow is committed to the process of educating ourselves on how to listen, to stand up, and to act. Our work does not exist in a vacuum – racial, economic, and social inequality inform and structure our programming, and we are seeking collaboration with BIPoC (Black, Indigenous, or People of Color) organizations.
From the Executive Director
Well, we have BRG in a Box (remote program); BRG Outside (socially distanced summer 2021 program) and BRG at School (in-person program launching winter 2022).
This is a story about BRG in a Notebook and about how far Build Repair Grow has come in a short time, and in a challenging era …
Today I wrote on the last page of a notebook that I’ve used pretty much only for BRG since I got it. The first page was dated July 7, 2019 and titled ‘Meeting with Fabric of Life and Build Repair Grow: Fiscal Sponsor Discussion.’
In the year and a half that followed the first page of this now beat up and trusty notebook, a nonprofit organization was born and has grown.
These pages serve as a time capsule, capturing scrawled notes from meetings and the names of new contacts who became friends and new ideas that became programs. These pages contain drafts of thank you notes ~ because it’s hard to put into words how grateful I am for all of your support.
Dates of summer projects were crossed out when reality shifted earlier this year, and stop gap notes from early morning board meetings listed things like “take home project kits (question mark?)”
Around the time BRG canceled all of our original programming and in the pages that followed, new ideas were written down along with lists of what might be possible.
Flip a few more pages and those ideas became proposals and calculations and zoom meetings, followed by instructions on how to access all kinds of online platforms and other details that still hang me up with technology.
This notebook captures a journey similar to the one that a lot of small businesses and nonprofits are facing right now. Scrawled out plans and hastily scribbled online sign-in instructions and notes to call the insurance company and dates that kept getting pushed back.
And here we are, so many months later, pages more frayed. Thank you for sharing this experience with me. Thank you for helping BRG build a community together — and a nonprofit organization — in such a challenging time.
The last page of my BRG notebook contains research on resilience and self efficacy for a grant that I’m working on right now. That feels like a fitting topic as I open the cover of the next notebook and fill the first page.
Warmly,
Logan
New Volunteers and New Board Member
Terri D’Arcangelo
Terri D’Arcangelo is a farmer / sometimes poet / sometimes comedian / sometimes baker / sometimes website designer and an all-around-jack-of-all-trades. She can sew a hem by hand, a skill that – with her tiny stature – comes in handy quite often. She is almost always thinking about how she can lead a quiet, simple, more connected, fulfilling life. Terri loves exploring in nature and, as a recent transplant to Western Mass., she gets to do plenty of that! She’s excited to get kids excited about learning real-world skills that will make them more self-sufficient and resilient.
Vincent Frano
Vincent Frano is an interdisciplinary artist and lifelong Nature nerd. Trained as an herbalist and horticulturalist, he puts his skills into practice through tending both wild and cultivated lands for food and medicine. He hopes to help others break down the cultural division between Humans and Nature through encouraging ecological stewardship and observational awareness. He also has 10 years of experience as a small business owner; from selling handcrafted wares to running a brick-and-mortar gift shop/apothecary.
Talia Miller
Talia Miller is an educator focused on bridging schools and the community to better help students participate in authentic learning. She likes to see what young people can serve up when adults don’t write the whole recipe. She is also a budding gardener, herbalist, and long-time runner. Talia is excited to help BRG in the role of general volunteer.
Charlotte Somerville
Charlotte Somerville is a farmer, facilitator, and community builder. Previously Charlotte has worked as a community builder and head of communications with art non-profits in the Netherlands and the US. Having grown up in a homestead-y family, she is inspired to help young folks cultivate their own resiliency. Charlotte has recently moved back to Western Mass and can often be found biking back and forth from feeding her chickens on her parents farm in Montague.
Strategic Plan
In September BRG Board, Staff, and Interns completed a six-week strategic planning process, which resulted in defined goals and objectives to benchmark our progress, to ensure that our activities align with our values and mission, and to hold the organization accountable for ensuring our programs provide real, measurable, positive outcomes for our participants. Additionally, we created a roadmap for scaling up the organization over the next few years.
Read the Strategic Plan here.
Colrain School Service Learning Program and BRG in a Box launches January 2021
Build Repair Grow is thrilled to partner with Colrain School in Colrain, MA. We have the supplies and materials in hand and will distribute BRG in a Box to a remote class of 6th grade students in early 2021. These students will test our project kits as a Service Learning Program, and report back to the BRG team. Their feedback and recommendations are crucial, as we won’t launch until we get the “thumbs up” from the young people we serve.
A Program For Every Season: BRG in a Box; BRG Outside; BRG at School
The BRG team is committed to the safety of our participants, staff, volunteers, and Board. We will be monitoring the impact of COVID closely, and will only move forward with any in-person programming if it’s safe to do so.
Currently we have three programs that coincide with the levels of remote and distanced in-person learning, aligning with COVID guidelines.
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- BRG-in-a-Box (remote program): Launches January 2021
- BRG Outside (outdoor / socially-distanced / masked / in-person program): Scheduled to launch Summer 2021
- BRG at School: Scheduled to launch in February 2022
BRG in a Box provides monthly take-home kits, distributed through schools and community agency partners. The kits cover our full curriculum of skills through a range of projects that allow young people to learn and practice growing and cooking food, sewing, basic concepts of bike/mechanical repair, and simple woodworking — while building confidence in young peoples’ ability to learn hands-on skills and solve practical problems. Each box contains all of the materials, instructions, and tools necessary to complete each project, including links to supplementary online video tutorials, making the projects accessible for participants of all backgrounds and skill levels.
BRG Outside will bring back one of our original in-person programming initiatives that was put on hold in early 2020. Through partnerships with small, community farms in Western Massachusetts, BRG Outside will provide safe, masked, and socially-distanced outdoor programs for small groups of youth to explore farm-specific projects focused on growing food, understanding how to cultivate and appreciate wild food in the garden, farm carpentry, and bike repair. Did you know that a slightly modified bicycle can power a root washer and clean carrots, beets, and other root vegetables? Or that a blender can be fitted to a bicycle allowing you to pedal your way to delicious, fresh salsa? BRG Outside is going to build resilience through skills-based projects on local farms.
BRG at School is a program scheduled to launch in February 2022, if it is safe to return to school at that time. More to come about BRG at School in coming months!
With widespread anxiety and uncertainty about the impacts of COVID and economic recession, these programs will not only provide an educational opportunity for young people while they are out of school but will also help young people play a proactive role in the resilience of their families and communities.
In the coming months, we will be seeking additional support from grantors, individuals, and foundations to launch and sustain BRG-in-a-Box and BRG Outside.
Seeking Additional Board Members
During our strategic planning process, BRG recognized that in order to grow the organization and expand our programs, we need to add additional skills and talent to our current Board of Directors.
We are currently seeking candidates for two positions:
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- Treasurer
- Grant Writing and Fundraising Chair
Descriptions for each of these volunteer board positions can be found on our website. If you, or someone you know, would be interested in helping our organization scale up please take a look at the descriptions and consider submitting an application.
How You Can Help Build Repair Grow
Donations in any amount will help us launch BRG in a Box, bringing practical skills to young people across Western and Central Massachusetts!
Donation Levels
$25
Helps 7 local youth learn about growing their own food
$50
Helps 10 local youth learn basic cooking skills
$100
Helps 20 local youth complete a sewing project
$200
Helps 50 local youth build confidence in using tools for basic repairs
If you would like to support us, donate here.
Whether or not you are able to contribute financially, we appreciate your support, and hope you will help us by spreading the word and telling other people in your community about Build Repair Grow.