Food for All: The Challenges and Opportunities for Feeding Our Community

Newton Community Farm presents “Food for All: The Challenges and Opportunities for Feeding Our Community.” Thursday, May 1, 2025 at UMass Mt. Ida Campus - Campus Center Auditorium. This is a free event. There will be ample free parking in front of the Campus Center Auditorium.

Come learn about the impact of local farms and urban agriculture on food security, community-driven approaches to reducing food waste and distributing food, and how you can support and engage with food justice initiatives.

The panel will feature Greg Maslowe of Newton Community Farm, Glynn Lloyd of Nectar and founder of City Fresh Foods and the Urban Farming Institute, Jeff Lemberg of the Newton Food Pantry, and Usha Thakrar of The Boston Area Gleaners.

About our panelists

Greg Maslowe

Greg has been the farm manager at Newton Community Farm since 2006. He came to farming through his graduate work in environmental and agricultural ethics. Greg loves talking with people, young and old, about where their food comes from and how their answers and choices impact other life/lives. He feels fortunate to have found a way of life that allows him to be outside most of the time: a vocation that means he’s in the dirt, come rain or shine, throughout the growing season, participating in creating a better world; and time during the off-season to explore the mountains on skis, leading backcountry trips in the Green and White mountains for the Boston Chapter of the Appalachian Mountain Club. He is on the Board of Directors of the Urban Farming Institute and on the planning committee for Eastern Massachusetts Collaborative Alliance for Farmer Training (EMass CRAFT).

Glynn Lloyd

Glynn has been an innovator in transformative urban economic development for more than 30 years. As Nectar’s Executive Director, he leads our efforts to invest in small businesses and create innovative residential programs that advance environmental justice and stable housing. Glynn also serves on the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Economic Development Planning Council, which is responsible for crafting a strategic plan to guide Massachusetts economic development policy over the next four years, and the Energy Transformation Advisory Board, which helps guide and advise the work of the Massachusetts Office of Energy Transformation. Prior to this role, Glynn was the founding Executive Director of the Foundation for Business Equity (FBE), one of our legacy organizations. There, he oversaw our unique approach to truly scaling up local Black and Latino enterprises to close the racial wealth gap. Once FBE merged with Mill Cities Community Investments to make broader impacts in addressing New England’s wealth gap, Glynn became executive director of the combined entity — now known as Nectar.  

Glynn was also the founder of City Fresh Foods, a nationally-renowned food service business. Over 20 years, Glynn grew the business an average of 15 percent annually to reach an eight-figure revenue. He is also a founder of the Urban Farming Institute (UFI), a community-led nonprofit supporting the development of the urban farming industry in Massachusetts, and helped establish the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts (BECMA), a coalition of black business, community, religious and labor leaders working together to improve economic indicators in the Black community.

Jeff Lemberg

Jeff is the first Executive Director at the Newton Food Pantry. Jeff leads the organization’s staff, operations and fundraising, in addition to overseeing continued efforts to expand and improve our on-site pantry and community-based initiatives. 

Jeff joined the Newton Food Pantry with deep experience in fundraising, partnership development, communications, and educational programming. Most recently, Jeff served as the Director of Development for the One Love Foundation, a national nonprofit that works to end intimate partner violence by providing free relationship health education resources to young people. He has also worked in support of economically disadvantaged military veterans throughout Massachusetts and is the former executive director of an education nonprofit that primarily served male-identifying teens/tweens. Jeff holds a Ph.D. in public communications and journalism and was a Professor of Communications and Media Studies for many years.  

Usha Thakrar

Usha is the Executive Director of the Boston Area Gleaners. She joined the Gleaners in 2019, and in her time so far has successfully seen the organization through the onset of the pandemic, major budget growth, and a planned acquisition of a new home. She has an extensive background working in nonprofit healthcare organizations, with 14 years of combined experience at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and DotHouse Health. Usha was the Clinical Program Director at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Department of Pediatric Oncology, and the Chief Operating Officer at DotHouse Health. She comes by her interest in food security through many years of volunteering at the Lexington Food Pantry, where she is currently also a board member. A graduate of Oberlin College, Usha holds a Masters in Public Policy from the Kennedy School at Harvard University.