Page 37 - BusinessWest October 31, 2022

in downtown Holyoke. The founding members were migrating farmers from Puerto Rico with a strong agricultural background who found themselves in a city with no opportunities to practice what they knew.
Eventually, these community leaders located an abandoned lot in South Holyoke, one full of trash, needles, and criminal activity, and came together to clean the lot, which would become the first community garden, sparking the growth of urban agriculture in Holyoke under the umbrella of Nuestras Raíces.
Today, the agency coordinates and maintains a network of 14 community gardens, including the gardens of
the Holyoke Educational System and community partners, and also operates a 30-acre farm, called La Finca, that focuses on urban agriculture, economic development, and creating change in food systems.
Those gardens, and the farm, grow
a wide range of crops native to Puerto to Rico, from several different types of peppers to lettuce; from garlic to peas. These are just some of the items made available at a mobile farmers market —
“I love teaching kids that there’s a future and that the future holds something good if you actually grasp opportunities and grow as a
community.”
a refurbished school bus — created as a grassroots response to address health issues and food access by providing access to produce grown at local farms in neighborhoods across the city, many of which would be considered food deserts.
“To see the foods that we used to grow in our backyards in Puerto Rico
be actually grown here ... there are no words to really explain the feeling that you get when you get reconnected to your roots,” Roqué told BusinessWest. “And that’s why I feel so passionate and I love this organization so much.”
She joined it as an office manager and developed into a program developer and program manager,
and eventually worked her way up to executive director. It’s a broad role with a number of responsibilities, both within the offices on Main Street and across the community, that she summed up this way:
“I don’t sit behind my desk — I go out there,” she said. “I hear; I listen
to people. Nuestras Raíces provides programming that is a response to the needs that we hear from constituents. We ask and respond in ways that reflect our mission, which is to connect the
agriculture and the socioeconomics and the food-justice piece of it and tie it together in ways that bring opportunities to this community.”
Indeed, over the years, the mission at Nuestras Raíces has been broadened into the realms of education and economic development.
For example, the agency has created what it calls the Holyoke Food and Agriculture Innovation Center (HFAIC), which serves as a food hub for Holyoke in the form of a center of food production, innovation, and education. The agency boasts two industrial kitchens and leases those spaces to community food entrepreneurs.
It also hosts a seven-week
educational program focused on providing financial and business- management assistance to community entrepreneurs based in Holyoke, Chicopee, Springfield, and other
area communities. It offers bilingual lessons covering a wide range of
topics including business and property insurance, permitting, bookkeeping, investing, marketing, business planning, and many others.
Beyond these offerings, Roqué
and her team strive to help others understand the opportunities and open doors that are available to them through hard work, education, and perseverance.
“I love teaching kids that there’s
a future and that the future holds something good if you actually
grasp opportunities and grow as a community,” she explained. “If you hold each other’s hand — and that’s what we do here with our businesses and
our program participants; we hold their hand — you can help them navigate their way and feel included.”
As the leader of Nuestras Raíces, as a leader in the community, and as a mentor to young people, Roqué says she tries to “teach by example,” as
she put it, especially when it comes to treating all people with the respect and
Roqué
Continued on page 46
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