After 14 years as our Executive Director, Margaret DeVos will step down on October 30, 2026. She is leaving Southside Community Land Trust (SCLT), on strong financial footing, with a skilled, experienced staff and a solid structure in place.

Under Margaret’s leadership, SCLT has grown a great deal with significant investment in new programs including, but not limited to workforce development, farmer support and services, land access, and crop aggregation and distribution in food insecure communities. This has meant more gardens, more farms, and more fresh, healthy, affordable food for more people in need.

Margaret  has also led SCLT through the opening of the South Providence Healthy Food Hub, our headquarters, with staff offices, community meeting and training spaces, a commercial kitchen, cold storage and processing equipment, and three food tenant spaces. She kept our work going through the pandemic, including moving the Plant Sale online. This year, she oversaw the permanent protection of Peace & Plenty Community Garden. She also helped build a Board and staff that is representative of the communities we work with.

Lastly, Margaret steered SCLT through the federal funding cliff and recent federal budget cuts. Today, we are on track to end 2026 with a surplus, with a balanced 2027 budget, and a debt reduction plan underway. We are planning to complete construction of our second food hub at Urban Edge Farm in 2027. This facility will increase food aggregation and distribution to include more farms and improve fresh, healthy and affordable food options for more people.

“SCLT has benefited from the incredible leadership of so many people in so many capacities for the past 45 years,” Margaret said. “I’ve been honored to be a part of that leadership for the past 14 years.”

Ben Torpey will be assuming the role of Interim Executive Director. His connection to SCLT goes back to 2003 as a City Farm volunteer, an Urban Edge Farm apprentice and, importantly, as a farm operator at Urban Edge Farm for 10 years. Recently, as Urban Edge Farm Manager and then Director of Programs, he has overseen program staff and led many federal grant projects. Ben will be working with the staff, Board of Directors and the rest of our SCLT community to continue operating our programs, maintaining partnerships, and advancing the mission. 

The Board is in the process of planning for SCLT’s next chapter. We are grateful for your trust and support as we carry this work forward.

With gratitude,

SCLT Board of Directors

Rochelle Lee, President
Luis Vargas Rivera, Vice-President
Matt Cordeiro, Treasurer
Anini Almanzar, Youth Representative
Andraly Horn
Edith Paye
Shane Lee
Sherri Gibbs
Mariama Kurbally
Diane Pelletier

Diane Pelletier y Rich Pederson, administrador de City Farm, en la celebración del Comité de la Venta de Plantas, junio de 2026

Diane Pelletier se unió a la Junta Directiva de SCLT este otoño. Durante muchos años ha formado parte del comité organizador y ha sido voluntaria dedicada a la Venta de Plantas Raras e Inusuales (Rare & Unusual Plant Sale), e incluso asumió la presidencia del comité en 2025.

También aporta más de dos décadas de experiencia en la supervisión de cuidados a largo plazo y en trabajo social. Antes de jubilarse este verano, fue Jefa del Centro de Regulación de Instalaciones de Salud del Departamento de Salud de Rhode Island, donde dirigió a un equipo de 28 personas y supervisó el cumplimiento normativo en 35 instalaciones de salud en todo el estado. Su carrera en el Departamento abarcó casi 20 años, desde inspectora de instalaciones de salud hasta subjefa. Anteriormente, trabajó en Colorado como defensora de residentes en centros de cuidado a largo plazo (ombudsman) y en Warwick como trabajadora social clínica. Tiene una Maestría en Trabajo Social de Colorado State University.

Diane se une a Mariama Kurbally, Shane Lee y Sherri Gibbs, quienes se incorporaron el año pasado con nuevas perspectivas y amplia experiencia en transformación de sistemas, no violencia y construcción comunitaria, y bienestar integral. Los cuatro se suman a una junta llena de talento, con experiencia que abarca desde décadas de organización comunitaria en el terreno y gestión práctica de operaciones agrícolas hasta cargos de alto nivel en derecho, finanzas y educación.

Click HERE to read a history of Peace & Plenty Community Garden

Dear Friends,

The growing season is well underway in Rhode Island and with it comes one of our favorite times of the year: farmers market season. At markets across the area, small-scale growers from SCLT’s network are bringing fresh, hyperlocal and seasonal produce directly to their neighbors week after week. This year, SCLT-network farmers and gardeners are selling at seven markets across Providence, Pawtucket, and Cranston, from the Hope Street Farmers Market, the largest in the state, to neighborhood spots like the Sankofa World Market, Broad Street, and the Central Falls Farmers Market. Stop by and meet the people who grew your food. Read more about the farmers selling at each of these seasonal markets here.

We’re also celebrating a recent legislative win that has been a long time coming: on June 19, Governor McKee signed the Small and Urban Farm Success Act into law. Modeled after the tax relief enjoyed by larger rural farms in the state for decades, this law extends property, income, and farm equipment exemptions to small and urban farms. For the farmers we work with, that means money that was going to taxes can now go back into the ground, into equipment, into seeds, into the work of growing more food for more people. SCLT played a central role in developing the bill’s language, and we are proud to have collaborated with powerhouse advocates to see it become law after years of persistence.

We are also more than halfway to our 2026 Annual Fund goal. As of this writing, supporters like you have raised $344,498 toward our $500,000 target. Those dollars fund the work we’re committed to: 19 youth staff hired this summer for paid workforce training, nearly 400 community gardeners tending plots across a network of 25 gardens and urban farms, 68 small-scale farmers supported at three peri-urban farm sites, and more than 26,000 nutrition-insecure Rhode Islanders reached with fresh food. We have a long second half ahead, and every gift moves us forward. You may contribute to these efforts with a gift to Southside. Please visit southsideclt.org/donate.

Thank you for reading, and for your continued support of this work.

With hope and gratitude,

Rochelle & Margaret

Youth Staff at Galego Community Farm, Summer 2025

Galego Community Farm has been part of SCLT’s work in Pawtucket for more than a decade. Tucked into a 161-unit affordable housing development where nearly half of residents live below the poverty line, the farm sits on land that has long held potential to be something more: a genuine gathering place, a green refuge, a site that signals to the people who live there that their neighborhood is worth investing in. This spring, SCLT received the funding to start making that real.

In March, Bloom Rhode Island announced a $50,000 Violet Grant award to SCLT, the largest single gift the initiative has ever made. Named after Rhode Island’s state flower, the Violet Grant was created to support high-profile planting projects that bring joy and beauty to Rhode Island’s cities. Bloom Rhode Island Program Manager Kevin Essington described the award this way: “Southside Community Land Trust has improved food access for thousands of people, using urban properties to grow food and build community. We are thrilled to expand this work to joyful cut-flowers, bringing bursts of natural beauty into people’s homes while lifting up local young people.”

The funding will support a significant transformation of Galego Community Farm’s landscape. Plans include native flowering and pollinator meadows, expanded cut-flower gardens, educational signage, and intentional gathering spaces with regular open hours for residents of Galego Court and the surrounding neighborhood. The expansion builds on what SCLT has already learned from working at the site. “People from Galego Court like to hang out here but not garden as much,” said Chandelle Wilson, SCLT’s Youth & Education Program Manager. “We learned last year that flowers attract our neighbors into the garden, not just here but at our farms in the Southside of Providence.”

Galego will continue to operate as a production and demonstration farm, where youth from SCLT’s Workforce Development program and the Green Changemakers, a joint program of SCLT and Groundwork RI, learn and work alongside experienced farmers. As part of this Bloom project, four young people from SCLT’s Workforce Development program will participate in the design and implementation of the new landscape plans, earning competitive wages while building portfolios and developing skills in green industry careers.

There is a lot of work ahead. The landscape transformation at Galego is a multi-phase project, and this summer marks the beginning of a new phase. SCLT will share updates on the progress, the people doing the work, and the space as it takes shape.

We are grateful to Bloom Rhode Island for this investment in the community at Galego Court, and we look forward to the neighbors, the young people, and the flowers doing the rest.

In a moment when federal funding for food systems work is under threat, when agricultural land costs continue to rise, and when food insecurity remains a lived reality for thousands of Rhode Islanders, your support matters. SCLT membership is one direct way to invest in food sovereignty, and to get real, practical benefits for your own growing in the process.

Membership with SCLT means you’re part of a community committed to building food sovereignty in Rhode Island. Your contribution supports everything we do: the community gardens we maintain across Providence and Pawtucket, the farmers we train and support at Urban Edge Farm and Good Earth Farm, the youth we employ in our Workforce Development Program, and the work we do connecting people to healthy, affordable food through VeggieRx and other food access initiatives.

More than 75% of the farmers we support identify as Black, Indigenous, and people of color. Two-thirds of our community gardeners are women. These are the communities with the least access to land, capital, and infrastructure, and the most to offer. Your membership helps us invest in their leadership, their expertise, and their vision for what food sovereignty can look like.

But membership also gives you something back. You get 50 gallons of organic compost – valued at $110 – to make your garden lush and productive. You get first dibs on plants at our Rare & Unusual Plant Sale on May 16 & 17, when you can choose from over 300 varieties of veggie, herb, annual and perennial plants before the general public gets access. You’ll get a 10% discount on all your Plant Sale purchases. You’ll receive free organic and non-GMO seeds. And you’ll get discounts on other gardening resources like organic fertilizer. These aren’t token benefits; they’re real value for people who grow food.

If you don’t garden but still want to support us, you can opt out of receiving compost and direct the full amount of your membership contribution toward the organization’s work. You can also sponsor a membership to be gifted to a community member, or sponsor one of our programs directly. Every gift helps, and every membership sends a message: you believe in what we’re building.

Membership or renewal for 2026 is open now! It’s easy: visit www.southsideclt.org/join and sign up for a one-year or recurring membership. For any questions, email members@southsideclt.org.

This spring, as you plan your garden and think about where you want to put your resources, consider SCLT membership. You’ll be investing in farmers and gardeners across Rhode Island while investing in your own growing season.