Since I enjoy shopping and cooking with local ingredients, I signed up right away in February. It seemed like farmer's market season would never arrive but when I arrived home from vacation on Friday, I found my first delivery waiting for me (I had put in a small order while I was away).
Tell me more about Greenologist - when and why did you start this community in Boston?
I started Greenologist about a year ago as a way to help folks connect with their local economic community and each other and learn to live a little more sustainably.
Greenologist's slogan is "Thing Big, Live Small." Can you elaborate on what this means?
Think Big, Live Small is basically about recognizing and taking responsibility for the fact that no matter what you do, you affect the community around you. You're a part of the big picture. You have a piece of control in what happens in your environment, whether that's your immediate neighborhood or a larger sociopolitical community. Live Small refers to the actual physical influence you can potentially have on that environment; you have the ability to help protect or destroy it. Ultimately, Think Big, Live Small is about leaving the biggest social impact and the smallest environmental one in your wake.
What are some easy simple ways that people in the Greater Boston area can think big, live small?
The easiest way to do it, and what we're promoting through Greenologist, is stewardship of your local community -- that means the environment, politics and economy in your area. It means learning about the folks around you and what they're doing, and helping to support them and their ideas. Trying to make the world a better place is an overwhelming idea that often leads to no action at all. Trying to make your community a better place by shopping at independently owned businesses and paying attention to how far your food is traveling is a much more manageable approach that yields the same cumulative results.
What inspires you to focus on local, organic and sustainable living?
The relationships I've formed and all the knowledge I've gained while practicing local living in my own life is all the inspiration I need. Since I've started really paying attention to how I source my life, I've found myself saving money, eating healthier, having fascinating conversations with people doing amazing things in my neighborhood, and generally feeling better about how I'm affecting the world around me. It's pretty incredible, actually, how much it's changed my life for the better. And the whole time I'm doing this, I know I'm helping to make someone else's dream a reality -- and not some guy on Wall Street. A real person with real ideas who I can have a conversation with and watch succeed.
Besides your own website, any other resources for my readers to learn more about green living?
Definitely. The Green Year, by Jodi Helmer, is a great way to start training yourself to think about making big changes in small increments. It was one of my first introductions to living small, and I still reference it for new ways to green my life. Along the same lines, the Locavore Way, by Amy Cotler, is a comprehensive introduction to eating locally. It's totally user-friendly, thorough, and engaging. It's pretty much everything you need to know about making the switch to local produce, all packed into a little manual you can tote around with you and whip out when necessary. Anything by Michael Pollan is generally a good primer on the "why's" of local food, Boston Localvores is a great source for finding locally made products, and I really love TreeHugger as a daily green news and information site. And everyone should watch the movie, Food, Inc. Everyone.
Tell me about the farmer's market delivery service. How did this idea come about?
I'm from New Hampshire, where the farm community is abundant and generally taken for granted (at least it was by me). I guess the whole "Live free or die" thing stuck with me more than I anticipated when I moved to the Bay State in that I was immediately struck with frustration when my options were laid out for me at the grocery store and they were Major Food Conglomerate A or Major Food Conglomerate B. I wasn't okay with supporting corporations who are working hard to shut down or take over every small farm in this country and decide what we have access to and how it's treated before we get our hands on it. Local food is healthier, easier on the environment and contributes to the local economy. Unfortunately, the only place you can really find it in abundance is at the farmer's markets, and they generally open and close during regular work hours, when most of us are tied to our desks. Last year I was listening to a friend complain about how he wanted to shop more locally but he just couldn't get to the markets before they closed, and it just sort of seemed like an obvious step to take: make supporting local agriculture more convenient for people, and more people will do it. The more people do it, the better chance we have of taking back control of what we eat.
How many local vendors are participating? Are there any that you are particularly excited about? What kind of items can we expect?
Whatever vendors are at the farmer's markets will be available to members for delivery; I haven't had anyone refuse to participate. All in all, it's about twenty-five vendors and farms and the products run the gamut from fruits and veggies to honey, baked goods, flowers and plant starters. All of the vendors are great, but I'm super excited to be bringing people meats from Stillman's Farm. Local meat is one of the hardest things to come by in this city, and Stillman's has a great product. All hormone free and pasture-grazed lamb, pork, poultry, beef -- it's all pretty incredible stuff.
How does this program differ from a CSA program?
CSA's are Community-Supported Agriculture. That means that you purchase a share in a farm's harvest -- typically before the growing season -- and receive a portion of that harvest all season long in the form of box shares of produce. The share that you receive in that case is the farmer's choice and generally restricted to what's grown on that farm, so you don't have a whole lot of control over what you get. CSA's are invaluable to a farm's success -- they provide the farmers with the resources they need to buy things like equipment and seeds before the growing season -- but they're not a feasible option for everyone, and they're not the only way you can support the farms. With our service, you're able to choose from a wide variety of products and support more than one farm or vendor at a time. You choose what and how much you want, and it's delivered to your door.
How long with the service run? What are the fees associated?
Delivery runs through the market season -- June through November. If there's enough interest at the end of the season for us to deliver from the winter markets as well, we'll pick that up, too, and continue deliveries throughout the colder months. Membership is currently $75/month, with a $50 signup fee. That money goes to pay for reusable bags needed for delivery, carbon offsets and a fund we've set up to purchase a hybrid van.
This is the first season of operation - how many people have signed up for the delivery service?
Without giving an exact number, I'll say that I'm really pleased with the interest we've received thus far. It's exciting to have people jumping on board to help make a difference in their communities.
Any other information you'd like to share about Greenologist or yourself?
Yes! I'm always interested in talking to folks about ways we might help their project or collaborate. I also just love talking food, so I'd encourage people to get in touch with me both if they have questions or if they just want to chat.
For more information about Greenologist, please check our their website (which also links to Lauren's blog). You can also find Lauren on Twitter or send her an email with any questions about their delivery service or general questions about local living!
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