Message from our Executive Director

There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in – Leonard Cohen

This past year has indeed been full of cracks and full of light.  Full of fear and full of hope.
When the Covid19 pandemic hit hard in March, we were in the middle of a great year of food education.  Two new gardens had sprung to life at Skyline Elementary (Ferndale) and Everson Elementary (Nooksack Valley.)  Thanks to our close partnership with The Good Food Project and the new Bellingham Public School Central Kitchen (aka ) we aligned our winter cooking lessons with some of the delightful new scratch cooked menu items being served for school lunch. The ClimeTime teacher training collaboration was entering a second successful year.

But then schools closed, summer camps were cancelled and it became crystal clear that the only right question for us to be asking was, “how can we help?”

Thanks to your steady support, we’ve been able to answer that question by growing food to feed hungry families while also staying true to our core food education mission (see below.)

When George Floyd’s murder became the brutal police death too many that galvanized the black lives matter movement, we grieved..  And then we got busy asking ourselves what Common Threads can and should be doing to build a culture of equity – both within our organization and within our community. We are committed to being more walk, than talk; more proactive than reactive, so expect our news on this front to come slowly and steadily over the coming months and years.

These are such strange new times, but one thing that stays constant is our gratitude for your support.

Stay Healthy. Breathe. Smile. Wash Your Hands. Wear a Mask. We’ll get through this together.

With gratitude,

Laura Plaut, Executive Director

Thank you to our friends & supporters 

This month, we are honoring YOU, in gratitude for the role that your support has played in helping kids learn about and get access to healthy food. We’ve highlighted four different aspects of how your donation and support has helped make a difference over the past year. Take a look at these four different spotlights for stories, data, pictures and videos from this last year:

• Part 1: Americorps members
• Part 2: School gardening & cooking lessons
• Part 3: Food production in school gardens
• Part 4: Farm-to-Freezer project

If we haven’t said it enough – THANK YOU for all that you do to grow good eaters. We couldn’t do it without you! 

View a list of our friends and supporters here.

Board of Directors 2019-2020

• Gail Knops, President
• Chris Casquilho, Vice President
• Amber Thorsen, Treasurer
• Nolan Davidson, Secretary
• Fred Berman
• Casi Herrera
• Susan Marshall
• Madchen Petrie