Groundswell Center Wins 2019 CFF Champions Award

Groundswell Center for Local Food & Farming of Ithaca, NY has been named the winner of the 2019 Community Food Funders Champions Award!

Seven funders in the CFF network, plus the 2018 winner East New York Farms, comprised the selection committee. Groundswell Center was chosen in recognition of their efforts to train the next generation of sustainable farmers, targeting these programs to marginalized communities, providing business and technical assistance to help them flourish, and doing so with a social justice and equity framework. Put together they represent the triple bottom line approach to food systems change. And done with a shoestring budget! The work of Groundswell Center will be presented at the 2019 CFF Annual Gathering.

[Update: Watch video of Groundswell Center presenting at the 2019 Annual Gathering and the “champions briefing” they organized in June, 2020]

2019 Champion: Groundswell Center for Local Food & Farming

The mission of Groundswell Center is to train the next generation of sustainable farmers in the Finger Lakes. They support individuals to develop agricultural skills and grow profitable, equitable and ecologically sound farm businesses. They work to dismantle racism in the food system by addressing inequalities in access to land and resources and prioritizing support for underrepresented producers including people of color, refugees, women and individuals with limited resources. In 2019 they’re proud to being celebrating their 10th ANNIVERSARY!

Groundswell Center runs an incubator farm on 6-acres with 80% of the farm business run by refugees; offers hands-on workshops led by sustainable farmers and social justice activists that integrate practical and regenerative farming techniques applicable to all growers; provides a 10-week farm business planning course; and regularly hosts food justice discussion groups and other events. 

Groundswell Center will be represented at the 2019 Annual Gathering by Elizabeth Gabriel, Executive Director, and Alexas Esposito, Farming & Food Justice Program Coordinator.

Elizabeth Gabriel is Groundswell Center’s Executive Director. Her experience in nonprofit leadership, sustainable farming and food sovereignty helps her guide Groundswell’s vision and development. As founding director of Common Good City Farm, she transformed a baseball field into a productive urban farm and grew the nonprofit from the ground up. Her passion for food production, equitable food access and a collaborative style was seminal to the urban agriculture movement in D.C. Elizabeth holds a dual MA from American University, is a graduate of multiple anti-racism trainings, and serves on the board of the Diversity Consortium of Tompkins County. She can often be found on the small agroforestry farm she runs with her partner, Wellspring Forest Farm, or in the woods with her dogs.

Alexas Esposito is Groundswell Center’s Farming & Food Justice Program Coordinator. She develops and coordinates workshop offerings and promoting Groundswell Center’s farm and food justice activities and events. Alexas moved to Ithaca in 2008 to pursue a Bachelors Degree in Music Composition at Ithaca College. After graduating, she was quickly absorbed into the community, and embarked on a path of exploration that led her back to the land. For the last few years she has cultivated a deeper relationship with seeds and the land through her traditional indigenous culture. She believes that through a harmonic relationship with nature, we can begin to restore equilibrium, as individuals, and as a human collective. She is a doula, an herbalism apprentice, and a strong advocate for traditional indigenous culture with her family, who hold workshops and practice traditional indigenous healing modalities through nature.

More about the CFF Champions Award

The Community Food Funders steering committee created the CFF Champions Award to recognize the leaders empowering food system change in our region. The award aims to promote the work of an outstanding leader or organization that is working towards the transition of our food system to one that pursues a true triple bottom line: a system that honors and values people, the environment, and sustainable economic models.

Thank you to all the funders who submitted nominations. We had a record number this year and were blown away by the amazing work happening in our region.