This is a milestone year for Pure Strategies, with 2023 marking 25 years in business. The journey over this time has been rewarding and we are grateful to our clients, employees, and the partnerships that helped shape it and make it better than we could have ever imagined.

As we reflect on the past twenty-five years and as we look ahead, we will be sharing some of our thoughts and experiences in a blog series, 25 Years of Impact. This first blog in the series celebrates some of our non-profit partnerships and highlights the meaningful work they do in our communities.

Food Justice in Our Communities

Pure Strategies has worked on advancing a more sustainable food system from the very early days of the company’s work. A core belief we have is that access to sustainably grown and healthy food is fundamental to the future we are working towards.

As a result, some of the organizations that we have supported most over the years have been the ones leading this work in our communities. At a time when 1 in 6 households in the U.S. are experiencing the ill effects of food insecurity, these partnerships has never been more vital. Today, more than 38 million people in the U.S. lack secure access to nourishing food. Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) are disproportionately affected by this inadequate food access. There is a lot that can be done and we are proud to be helping these leaders advance toward food justice.

One of our longest-standing partnerships is with The Food Project. The Food Project works in Massachusetts at the intersection of youth, food, and community, with the mission to create a productive community of youth and adults from diverse bedgrounds to work together to build a sustainable food system.

For example, The Food Project grows vegetables, herbs, flowers, and fruits on approximately 70 acres of urban and suburban farmland in Greater Boston and on the North Shore of Massachusetts. Each year, they work with 140 young people and thousands of volunteers to grow 200,000 pounds of produce. That produce is donated or distributed to SNAP/HIP-accessible farmers’ markets, through neighborhood stores, and to hunger relief organizations—to increase access to healthy, affordable food.

Our team has enjoyed getting our hands dirty in the organization’s farms. We have planted, harvested, weeded, and bagged fresh foods. This volunteer time in the field helped our team gain an appreciation of the hard work the organization does and the reward of providing wholesome foods grown sustainably. We also help fund The Food Product and are excited to have seen the organization grow through the years. Since the organization’s founding 29 years ago, they have cultivated over 5,000,000 pounds of produce on urban and suburban land in Massachusetts.

Another non-profit partner of Pure Strategies is Downtown Greens, an organization in Fredericksburg, VA with a mission to foster community involvement and growth by protecting and nurturing urban greenspace through collaborative environmental stewardship and experiential education, with a focus on sustainable food systems.

Downtown Greens produces food in the center of the City of Fredericksburg to provide food to those in need and provide greenspace and educational opportunities for the community. A few of the programs include a “Take What You Need” Community Solidarity Plot that is planted with vegetables and herbs, a free farmer’s market stand once a week, and a free fridge and pantry that is accessible to anyone in need.

The organization is expanding its efforts with the purchase of 56-acres of land. We are excited to support this expansion by contributing to the funds needed to purchase the land that contains living wetlands and mature trees, and some of the last farmland in Fredericksburg. The aim for this land is to be a place to teach the community about sustainable and organic growing techniques and provide accessible open greenspace for the community. This land, which was initially slated for industrial development, will now be preserved in perpetuity under the nurturing care of Downtown Greens.

Pure Strategies also helped develop, fund, and launch a new program to advance the BIPOC regenerative farming community in the Fredericksburg region. This was an innovative program that provided a paid role at Downtown Greens to better understand the needs of the producers and identify ways to help them scale their businesses, while also providing a college student the opportunity to build practical experiences in their field. Some of the early successes of the program included connecting farmers that could share capital equipment and exploring market opportunities for their products.

These are just two of our community partners. We are proud to be able to support their work and the work of other non-profit organizations. They are helping us progress towards a more sustainable future.