May 20, 2025: Truth stalks

We’re honoring the area’s abolitionist past with those who carry its spirit into the future. Since 1992, the Sojourner Truth Memorial Committee has been supporting folx in the spirit of its namesake, and for twenty of those years has given to enterprising students from Hampshire and Hampden Counties who push their work toward a more just and liberated society. We meet Jameicia Estes, scholarship committee chair, and scholarship recipient Charlie Kocsmiersky to learn more about the organization, the weekend festivities, and how the changes we want to see in the world can start in your neighborhood. And, it’s also asparagus season here in western Mass., and with NEPM’s own Asparagus Festival looming on the horizon, we figure we visit where they say the best stalks grow. We head to Plainville Farm in Hadley to see Wally Czajkowski to learn how to properly harvest the ferns and how national immigration issues are affecting daily operations on the farm.