One of the first posts we did was about why you should eat local food. Since then we’ve posted about a few local businesses that we’ve reached out to, but I just realized we never explained who we are or what we’re doing here. For that matter we never explained why we care about what you eat or where you buy it from. So in this post, our first of the New Year, I’m going to break it down for you.
We are the Washington College GIS lab. Washington College is a small liberal arts college located in the small town of Chestertown, Maryland. 
Because we are a part of the Washington College community, our lab has over 60 student employees working during the semester, with just 15 full-time staff to manage them and our ongoing projects. Our lab primarily provides cartographic services and analysis, but we also work on grants and contracts slightly on the fringe of the mapping world. By taking on complex projects slightly outside of our core area of expertise, we are forced to grow as an organization and learn new skills we can then put towards new projects.
The Upper Shore Harvest Directory project is a result of a grant from MAERDAF (the Maryland Agricultural Education & Rural Development Assistance Fund),
which came to us through a partnership with the Upper Shore Regional Council (USRC). The USRC is a regional planning and development agency for Cecil, Kent and Queen Anne’s counties. It exists to foster development of the region by coordinating plans and projects to the benefit of the people in the Upper Shore Region.
The Upper Shore Harvest Directory was built on the idea that Cecil, Kent and Queen Anne’s counties are home to over 1200 farms. These farms encompass over 350,000 acres and strive year round to provide quality produce and products to all their customers. Despite these numbers and the quality of the product, most people simply don’t know where to go to buy fresh food and goods that isn’t the local supermarket or shop. That’s where we come in.
We built an online Harvest Directory that has addresses, contact information, and a long list of who is selling what. We created a print brochure that is available in Visitors’ Centers, Chambers of Commerce, and local hotels and businesses. We have a few other ways planned to get the Harvest Directory to the people who want it, and here’s why: Buying fresh, locally sourced products is healthier for you, it helps support your local economy, and it allows you to look at the person who grew the food you put on your plate.
The people in our directory do not hide behind a corporate name. They do not hide where the products you are buying come from, how it was transported to you, and what the nutritional value is. These businesses are run by your neighbors. Their business interest is growing a product good enough that you’ll want to buy it, and then keep coming back to them for more.
So to sum it up, the GIS lab works with the USRC on a grant from MAERDAF to add to and maintain the USHD so you can put a face on the person who handles and grows the food you eat. And we do it because we are your neighbors too.
LM
Eastern Shore Harvest Directory 