In January, Petaluma Bounty marked Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2024 with a day of service on the farm. It was our 11th year opening up the farm to anyone who wanted to reflect on Dr. King’s legacy and be part of “A Day On, Not a Day Off.” While the federal holiday marking Dr. King’s birthday was established in 1983, it was set as a National Day of Service in 1994. Coretta Scott King, Dr. King’s widow, said, “The greatest birthday gift my husband could receive is if people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds celebrated the holiday by performing individual acts of kindness through service to others.”

2024 MLK Day on the farm

Monday, Jan. 16, 2024 saw a reprieve from the rain. It was perfect, as we had invited our community to celebrate Dr. King with a day of service on the Bounty Community Farm. Over 60 people contributed with a great showing of families. One family said they came all the way from San Rafael because they had a hard time finding volunteer opportunities that welcomed young children nearby.

With the youngest participant not yet even toddling, Petaluma Bounty was able to host a wide variety of activities for all ages and capacities. In four hours, we were able to accomplish all of the projects on our priority list, and more! 

Projects included 

• sorting pots and seeds for our upcoming Community Seed Exchange;
• cleaning the chicken coops and pens;
• setting up a new compost bin and harvesting the finished compost;
• moving rock piles;
• pruning the hedgerow and preparing the area for mowing and mulching; and
• pruning perennials and garden areas outside of cultivation. 

For the Petaluma Bounty team, it was exhilarating to see everyone working together. 

Back in 2011, Petaluma Bounty heard from community members that they had a hard time finding local activities to celebrate Dr. King’s legacy. Hearing that, Petaluma Bounty was happy to open up the farm to our community to gather, to work, and to reflect. An annual tradition was born, and the Day of Service has now become an annual event that many of us look forward to.

MLK Day also marks the yearly kickoff of volunteer activities on the Bounty Farm. It’s a special time to reconnect with familiar and new faces. We saw our regular weekly volunteers, volunteers who have made it a tradition to come specifically on MLK Day, and volunteers who had never been to the Bounty Farm before. Some parents brought not only their children but family friends as well, to make it a fun, social event for kids and their friends. 

Reflecting on Dr. King’s legacy

Dr. King envisioned and dedicated his life toward a Beloved Community in which all people would share in the collective wealth, The King Center website explains. Standards of human decency will not allow poverty, hunger and homelessness to exist. An all-inclusive human spirit will eliminate racism, discrimination, bigotry and prejudice. Peaceful conflict-resolution, not military power, would resolve international disputes. “The Beloved Community,” was a term originally coined by the philosopher-theologian Josiah Royce and popularized by Dr. King.

With that in mind, at the start of our MLK Day of Service, we asked volunteers to reflect on what values they were celebrating on MLK Day and how they were inspired. In a circle of several dozen people, just a few shy hands sprang up to share each of their appreciations for community connections. Even if it wasn’t vocalized, we believe that the workday was one expression of a Beloved Community, albeit loosely formed.

Community and equity in food access

For Maria, our Education & Engagement and Farmers Market Ambassador Coordinator, the workday was a day to honor MLK’s accomplishments, to celebrate the progress since, and to recognize that there is much work still to be done. Here are her thoughts, in her own words. 

“We feel privileged to be located in a community that has individuals and organizations who fight for equality in all aspects of life and recognize the responsibility that comes along with that,” Maria reflects. 

I challenge myself to remember that “community” is a dynamic word,” Maria says. “It encompasses our wonderful farm volunteers, the farm neighbors, customers at the farmers market and farm stand, staff, and the many people who work behind the scenes to help us co-create a thriving local food system with healthy food for everyone. It also includes community members who go far beyond Petaluma — our “community” throughout Sonoma County and the Bay Area at large, and to truly celebrate the beautiful, diverse communities we have all around us.

I also challenge us to face the reality of Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy honestly and to not fall into the fallacy of thinking his “dream” has been realized and the work is done. Instead, MLK Day should be a day to honor the work he did, remember that he lost his life while fighting for equality, and to motivate us to avoid complacency and keep fighting for an equitable and just society. 

Dr. King’s legacy serves as a reminder to find balance in learning and work. We, as a community at Petaluma Bounty, and individually, need to educate ourselves on the systems that have been put in place historically to intentionally create divisions and inequality among different groups of people, at the local, state, and national level. We also cannot let learning prevent us from doing the work that needs to be done. We need to come out from behind the screens, books, and podcasts and be active members in our Beloved Communities to create change. We cannot be successful without both.

For Petaluma Bounty, our expertise and focus directs us to examine equity in food access and food justice. Who is at the table when we are having conversations about what an equitable food system looks like? What does true “nutrition” look like? How are we supporting BIPOC farmers who were intentionally discriminated against by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for loans? How are we creating market access for new BIPOC farmers to grow and expand their businesses?”

The push for equality continues in the agricultural realm

The work Dr. King spearhead is far from finished and the agricultural realm is no exception. Land loss, discrimination and difficulty securing capital and credit have been significant factors in Black land loss over the last century. In addition, Black landowners have been disproportionately affected by heirs’ property, a complex legal status that affects how land is passed down through generations, the Union of Concerned Scientists reports. Many Black leaders are pushing the work forward, often behind the scenes, to press for equality and proper compensation. They are addressing problems that are ingrained within our current food systems from centuries of structural racism. For example:

• In 1910, about 14 percent of U.S. farmers were Black, owning more than 16 million acres, a PBS News segment reports. Now, only one in 100 farmers are black owning fewer than 5 million acres, the news report states. While the number of overall farmers in the U.S. shrank over the decades, the proportion of Black farmers diminished. Beyond economic factors, loan discrimination and violent theft dispossessed Black farmers.
• Black farmers sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture for alleged discrimination on the basis of race in various federal programs denying Black farmers loans and other benefits that were granted to White farmers. The parties reached a settlement in the fall of 2023.
• Grassroots and nonprofits are fighting to regain black farmers access to land. This includes Kitchen Tables Advisors who Northern California producers in purchasing land. If you are interested in learning more about the history of farm access, we recommend checking out Gaining Ground: The Fight for Black Land. You can read about the documentary here. You can also listen to Episodes 5 & 6 of 1619 by The New York Times, “The Land of Our Fathers Part 1 & 2” (although we highly recommend the entire podcast!) 

We all have much more work to do and the first step is to be aware and supportive of such efforts. Holding our first volunteer work day of the year on MLK Day, each year, allows us to reflect and continue to do what we can, to attempt to move the needle inch by clay-dirt-packed inch. 

Petaluma Bounty Director Suzi Grady, staff Maria Wnorowski and Masako Watanabe contributed to this blog post.