Where healing the inner child meets healing WNY’s food system: Meet Kristin Heltman-Weiss

What does it take to invest in the vitality and longevity of a sustainable, just regional food system?
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The Western New York Regional Food System Initiative study, informed by stakeholders in all areas of the region’s food system, reveals some of the many answers for Western New York: the creation of land succession plans, feasible funding streams for infrastructure, and access to knowledge of sustainable farming practices.
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But as Providence Farm Collective’s Kristin Heltman-Weiss imparts in a conversation with Food Future Western New York, personal reconciliation with and healing from the traumatic effects of the current system goes hand-in-hand with on-the-ground communal action to build a system that is of and for all its stakeholders. ​

As a young girl growing up in the largely affluent village of East Aurora, Kristin was one of the few in her community experiencing food insecurity. She shares, “In elementary and middle school, I was one of a handful of kids in my community who qualified for [food stamps and] free lunch, but I never got [lunch] because I didn’t want to be judged by the kids I grew up with. I chose to go without eating than to be embarrassed.”
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Fast forward to her 30s, Kristin began to recognize that it was not her responsibility to harbor shame or embarrassment about her experience. Rather, that she was harmed while at the intersection and mercy of several dysfunctional systems—including the food system. “No one should have to feel that way. Because we all need food, and healthy foods should be available to everybody. It should be done with dignity, not shame attached to it.” She shared. 

Even in light of her individual and familial struggles, Kristin recognizes the privileges that she simultaneously held during that time that helped keep her and her family afloat. “I had good access to education. I lived in a walkable community. I started cleaning houses at 11 [in my community] to be able to afford things. So, in many ways, I look back and think, ‘Oh, I was lucky’.” 

Now, Kristin carries these experiences with her every day as Executive Director of Providence Farm Collective (PFC), where tackling food insecurity is a large part of the organization’s purpose. PFC sprouted from the Somali Bantu Community Farm established in 2017; a grassroots, Black immigrant and refugee-led project whose mission was to increase food security and access to fresh, culturally relevant crops. 

With the Somali Bantu community members welcoming five additional communities on board, Providence Farm

Collective formed two years later and now owns 37 acres of fertile, second-generation farmland in Orchard Park. Their mission of cultivating farmer-led and community-rooted agriculture and food systems to actualize the rights of under-resourced peoples comes with only three requirements:

• Organize community members through Providence Farm Collective;
• Address communal food insecurity;
• Reinvest any profits from community plots directly back into the community it serves. 

​“This system honors that every group comes from different cultural traditions and practices surrounding how they organize, how they share, and how they support one another. And that's not on us to tell them to do it differently.” Kristin says. “The current system operates under the idea that farmers are donating surplus vegetables or foods. And the thing is, no farmer, [especially those facing one or more forms of systemic oppression], can afford to do that.” 

Given her tremendously positive impact on the Western New York food system and early involvement with Food Future Western New York (FFWNY), Kristin will now be serving on the initiative’s Regional Leadership Team.

“Get behind it. This is a really great opportunity to implement some of the actionable items that came out of the [Western New York Regional Food System Initiative] study, rather than just put another study on the shelf.” She says about the work ahead. “Knowing that hundreds of people across the entire region are committed to this, I feel like there is more of an opportunity to move [our local food system] forward than ever. And that, that’s really promising."
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Select quotes have been edited for clarity.