Join Grow Food Amherst member Karen Ribeiro for a facilitated community discussion about farming ancestry. How many generations has it been since your family farmed? Have farming and gardening stories been passed down in your family? Your participation in this conversation is welcome whether or not these questions have a simple answer. The discussion will be preceded by a writing exercise to help participants reconnect with their stories.

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Ribeiro is writing a book currently called Digging My Roots and one of her anecdotes details her travels to Ireland where she found the gravestone of her great grandmother’s parents and siblings in Athenry. It was obvious by the date of death of two siblings – and the two subsequent sisters named in their honor as they had died in infancy (Nelly and Ellen, Margret and Peggy) – that the Great Potato Famine, caused by a fungus, was a factor.

Here are a few writing prompts for the discussion:

This discussion or “fun-shop” is not intended to be fodder for Ribeiro’s book, though if you share something particularly amazing, she may ask if you’d be interested in being quoted!