New Farm Grant for GCC Student Internships

Photo Credit: Greenfield Community College
Source: Greenfield Community College

The Recorder, December 22nd, 2015, by Recorder Staff.

A community college association has awarded Greenfield Community College, Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture, and the Franklin Community Co-op $25,000 to fund paid internships for six GCC students at the local agriculture promoters and the co-op business.

The farm market project is intended to develop a replicable model for coordinating food and farm- focused education, marketing, and sales that support the growing sustainable farm movement in western Massachusetts.

The Rural Community College Alliance grant will fund six 3-credit paid internships for GCC Farm and Food Systems and Business majors. The costs of the credits earned are covered by other grants the college has won. Three interns will work for the Franklin Co-op, owner of Green Fields Market and McKusker’s Market, and three will work at CISA.

The internships housed at the Co-op will continue the work of fall 2015 GCC interns to create a mid-week Farmers Market in Greenfield, seeing the project through its opening in the spring of 2016 and the remainder of the summer and fall.

The College Farm Market Project is a project of the SAGE Education Center at GCC. SAGE — the Sustainable Agriculture and Green Energy Education Center — currently has 53 students majoring in SAGE programs or certificates in Renewable Energy/Energy Efficiency and Farm and Food Systems.