Every Wednesday afternoon, from the late spring through mid-fall, half of the marketing and communications staff at Saint Michael’s (Buff Lindau, Brian MacDonald and I) stopped what we were doing in Prevel Hall and hurried across campus to pick up our orange baskets from the Food Hub and load the contents into a variety of tote bags for the trek back to our offices.

The Food Hub, based at the Burlington Intervale, is a terrific collaboration between local farmers and local consumers, a “farmer collaborative” of sorts that allows individuals to pay for a seasonal food share, and in return get many weeks worth of produce from local farmers. The Food Hub delivers the shares to area workplaces and the baskets overflow with everything (based on what you sign up for) from eggs to fruit to chickens to cheese to flowers, as well as lots and lots of wonderful, seasonal, local vegetables.

The summer of 2009 was the first season of Food Hub deliveries at Saint Michael’s. A winter 2009-2010 share and this summer’s season have continued the collaboration, and we’re gearing up for our winter share to begin sometime soon (what’s in a local produce share in the wintertime? Lots of root vegetables, certainly, and other items like cornmeal, dried beans, maple syrup and yogurt. Every week is different).

I was thrilled to see that when our students returned this past August, 15 had signed up for an abbreviated summer share, that began when they arrived on campus and ended when the growing season ended in October. Not only did our students get the benefit of fresh, local food but they also learned how to cook it as well.

We’ve been beyond fortunate to have Rit DiVenere ’67 as part of our local community at Saint Michael’s for almost 30 years. Rit is retiring in January 2010 and his absence will really change the landscape around here. We pay tribute to Rit on in the fall issue. We invite you to share your thoughts as well. Write to smcmagazine@smcvt.edu