Today is all about participation!
It's exactly what we want to do in strawberry season! and since that has just started, we head to the pick-your-own fields of Pie In The Sky Farm in Northampton. There, proprietors Kristen Sykes and Fred Beddall walk us through their many different varieties (some ready and some not), show us some of their other PYO crops that are just getting started, and speak to how their particular land stewardship helps all their crops and the area itself do better.
It's what we want to do with our neighborhoods too. And what better way to participate than making art! Britt Ruhe of Common Wealth Murals swings through the studios to talk about all of the murals her organization has been bringing to Springfield. We discover how Common Wealth Murals helps to train more muralists, how they got involved in the Nelson Stevens restorations, and how the second organization that CWA founded,Fresh Paint Springfield, truly gets the community involved while continuing to do bigger and better things (some this week even!)
And speaking of cities, we participate in the civic process. NEPM reporter Jill Kaufman has been reporting on a motion to censor books in Ludlow school libraries. She, and author Jarret J. Krosoczkawho has had his books banned before, sit with us to untease the Gordian knot of how we got here before the meeting next week that may put the sanctions into place.