Maja Smith

1. Describe your past and current involvement with Intervale Community Farm (ICF) and why you are excited about serving on the Board. 

I have been an ICF member since 1996 and an ICF Board member since 2016. Over the years, ICF has become an integral part of my family’s life and has brought us great joy and comfort. It has been an honor to serve on the Board over the last nine years and watch ICF grow and evolve through good times and through hard times. I’m inspired by the vision, resilience, and dedication of the Board and our outstanding staff as we forge onward in making ICF the best it can be. At a basic level ICF is a provider of healthy food for our members. It is also a supportive entity in our community, helping those in need, and welcoming and inspiring people to discover the joys of growing food locally. This is why I want to continue to serve on the ICF Board for another three years. .

2. Please describe any relevant skills you would like to contribute to ICF that make you a good candidate for the Board. This may include specific skills such as accounting and financial planning, land management, engineering, flood management, farm and food sovereignty policy, experience with cooperatives, addressing diversity issues, strategic planning, or past board or community organization experience.   Or, you may have never served on a Board or don’t have specific skills but have a passion for food, health or farming and love ICF; describe these qualities as well.  

I am a graphic designer working on climate change and sustainable agricultural issues for organizations across the U.S. I also plan and design interpretive exhibits for parks, farms, museums, and environmental organizations. I’ve designed several communications for ICF, collaborating with board member and artist, Bonnie Acker. But more than my design skills, I bring to ICF my experience in strategic planning and community organization. Before becoming a designer, I worked as a planner and project coordinator on issues and opportunities facing Lake Champlain. I created, managed, and served on several boards and working groups in this capacity. This strategic planning and problem-solving experience has afforded me the skills to help guide ICF to be the productive, resilient, and nurturing community farm that it is, and I would be honored to continue in this role for another three years, especially as we are facing the climate change and societal pressures of our times.

 3. The ICF Board has identified the importance of serving the diverse members of the Burlington community whether because of wealth, racial, ethnic or religious background, recent immigration, gender or LGBT identity or other.  What experience do you have, personal, business or organizational, that could help ICF work towards this goal?  Do you have any suggestions?

I was a Meals on Wheels driver in Shelburne from 2015-2023. I saw a lot of poverty, poor health, and rough living, even in the affluent town of Shelburne. It was shocking at times but always gratifying to bring people in grave need a homemade meal. This experience opened my eyes to the desperation people endure, and now with out-of-control homelessness and food insecurity in the Burlington area, ICF, more than ever, can serve as a force and beacon of hope in combatting hunger. Collaborating with local organizations to create channels for us to serve an even greater role in providing sustenance, support, and hope during these extreme times would be my goal over the next three years. The organizational skills I describe above in question 2, would enable me to assist ICF work towards this goal in meaningful ways.

 4. ICF experienced tremendous flooding in recent years which impacted our food, our land, and our personnel.  We think these events might become more frequent in the future, what ideas do you have about the future of ICF and how it might deal with these challenges? Do you currently have the time outside of Board meetings to help grapple with these challenges which involve both short-term and long-term solutions?

 Facing the destruction and realities of climate change from the 2023 & 2024 floods at ICF has been deeply saddening and humbling. But just as the floods came in a tremendous ground swell so did our membership, Board, and staff to support the Farm in heroic ways before and after these two devastating events. I never felt more inspired to support and heal the Farm. I remember our emergency Board meetings before, during, and immediately after, as well as months of meetings to follow, and feeling how important it was to remain resilient and forward-thinking. I am proud of the adaptation initiatives and solutions ICF has identified and undertaken thus far (not enough space to detail here). However, this is an ongoing effort and our work has just begun. I would indeed make time outside of regular board meetings to continue to grapple with climate resiliency challenges facing ICF.

5. What else would you like ICF members to know about you?

Raised an old hill farm with a giant vegetable garden in Huntington, VT, I spent my first 18 years planting, weeding, harvesting, and putting up vegetables with my family. As a result, growing and eating bountiful harvests of organic vegetables has been the core of my being my entire life. Although I have a cute little garden in Shelburne (my husband would not call it little), I cannot possibly grow the quantity and quality of vegetables ICF provides our household. From a very basic level, I am totally in awe with what Andy and our amazing crew of farmers do for us every day, and would be delighted to serve another three years as a Board member of this exceptional farm. To me ICF is much more than a place to grow vegetables. It is a place to appreciate and celebrate nature and harvest, and a place to gather and support each other and our greater community.