South Coast collaborative ‘manifests love’ through food

Once a week in the summer and fall and every other week in the winter, 150 bags of fresh food are distributed to families and individuals throughout Greater New Bedford — entirely free of charge. 

Tucked inside each sack can be anything from zucchini to scallions or chicken to acorn squash — all grown or raised within a 60-mile radius. Each bag also holds a letter that sports a logo: a heart-shaped tree surrounding a hand picking a tomato. Underneath are two words: “Manifest Love.”

Manifest Love, a collaboration of Round the Bend Farm in Dartmouth and four community organizations — Sacred Birthing Village, Youth Opportunities Unlimited, YWCA Southeastern Massachusetts and NorthStar Learning Centers — provides participants with fresh food at no cost. 

Round the Bend, a 115-acre nonprofit farm in Dartmouth, grows over 50 types of fruits and vegetables, including tomatoes, figs, kale, herbs, summer squash, turnips and asparagus.

The Manifest Love program, which began in 2020 as the brainchild of Desa Van Laarhoven, the farm’s co-founder and executive director, hit the $1 million mark in food distribution this February. It has brought families and the community together, connected people across generations and provided food and love to those involved, according to its founders, partners and participants. 

Maria Rosario, executive director at NorthStar Learning Centers, said Manifest Love provides the families it serves, many of whom are low-income, with access to fresh fruits and vegetables. These products aren’t always the easiest option when you’re trying to “get the biggest bang for your dollar,” she said.

“It’s about accessibility,” said Iva Brito, who became familiar with Manifest Love when she was director of the Bristol Community College Women’s Center, which used to receive shares. “It’s about the community [and] making people feel that they’re seen and valued through agriculture.”

Reaching a milestone

Van Laarhoven, Manifest Love partners, and recipients of the shares described reaching $1 million in food shares as rewarding, satisfying and a milestone. Rosario said hitting the goal speaks to the need for the program. 

The consistency of Manifest Love has strengthened the relationships among the organizations involved, Rosario said. Now, the partners collaborate on other issues, like professional development and transportation. 

Brito said the program has a “ripple effect” for a healthier community. Soraya DosSantos, founder and Village Keeper of Sacred Birthing Village SouthCoast, said the program “just made sense.”

“It’s [people] continuing to come together and utilize their unique gifts to make this work,” said Bernadette Souza, executive director of Youth Opportunities Unlimited. “That’s how you get to a million.”

How it works

To distribute the food, Round the Bend delivers bags to its partners, who then distribute them to their participants. Some shares go home with children through a school or after-school program. Other shares are delivered, or participants pick them up directly.

These direct interactions during the distribution process serve as a check-in. 

“The staff gets to know the clients a little bit better when they’re checking on them,” said Gail Fortes, executive director at YWCA Southeastern Massachusetts. “They’re always asking [if] there are other things that they might need.”

The program has been supported through grants, funders, donors, fundraisers, events at the farm and the Manifest Love food truck, according to Van Laarhoven. Any extra funds go “right back down to our bottom line,” she said. 

During peak season, the shares typically contain about eight different types of produce, which vary depending on the season. 

Education about food is another major aspect of the program. Rosario said she hopes the program will introduce young children to wonderful, healthy food and normalize it. 

“We’ve been able to teach [participants] and educate them about nutrition, showing them different ways to utilize some of the shares in their everyday lives and cooking with recipes and exposing them to something different that they normally wouldn’t have had,” said Fortes.

Effects

The shares give participants an opportunity to have fresh fruits and vegetables in their diets and to use money that they would have used on food in other ways. 

Kendra Lebeau, an enrollment specialist for daycare and after-school programming at NorthStar Learning Centers, said she’s invested the money in her children, her household and in learning different businesses. 

Patricia Andrade, a Manifest Love participant through YWCA Southeastern Massachusetts, said the extra money allows her to do activities with her kids or take them on short day trips. 

Andrade said she was suspicious when her son came home from school one day and said there was free food at his daycare. But when she went to the school the following week, she found a bag with her name on it. 

“I said, ‘Oh my God, that’s really, really fresh food.’ I love it because in my country we just have fresh food,” said Andrade, who is originally from Cabo Verde. “And then when I taste[d] it, I said, ‘Wow, I feel like I’m back to my country.’”

Rosario said immigrant families and families of color that receive the bags “really look forward to [them],” because the fresh food is familiar.

“It’s so beautiful to see the excitement in their faces when they take the vegetable out and they say, ‘Oh my God, this reminds me of when I was home,’” Rosario said. 

Founding

Manifest Love began during the COVID-19 pandemic when the need for food access in the community became more apparent. That’s when Van Laarhoven, Fortes, Souza and Rosario came together through Zoom meetings. 

Van Laarhoven said that because so many people were trying to secure food during the pandemic, Round the Bend was able to give away food without worrying about directly competing with other local farmers. That’s because farmers’ Community Supported Agriculture programs became so popular during the pandemic, they often sold all their shares. 

Today, competition is not a concern because Manifest Love is mainly reaching a group of people who were not previously involved with local farms, wrote Madigan Kay, Manifest Love farmer and distribution manager. Cost and transportation could also be potential barriers for CSAs — which can typically require on-site pickup — while Manifest Love is entirely free and most partners work with recipients to get them the products, she wrote.

Manifest Love’s organizers said food insecurity didn’t go away after the pandemic. Demand for the program’s food remained high.

So it has evolved into a larger and more permanent fixture. It has produced a cookbook, opened a food truck and now provides information about products through videos, blogs and letters, most of which are available in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

It also supports other farmers, Van Laarhoven said, because the program buys any produce it can’t grow at Round the Bend from local farms within a 60-mile radius. 

What’s next?

Many partners have increased their number of shares since the program began and said they want to see the program continue to grow. Round the Bend Farm will begin providing 160 shares weekly or bi-weekly this May, up from 150, according to Van Laarhoven. 

Every year, Van Laarhoven said, she asks the question, “Do we still do this?” — and the response demonstrates the success of the program, she said.

“Every year the partners have said, without a doubt, ‘We need this,’” Van Laarhoven said. “‘And if you can’t do it, we need to find somebody else that can and figure this out in a different way.’”

Crystal Yormick is a Boston University journalism student and a frequent contributor to The New Bedford Light. Email her at cyormick@newbedfordlight.org.