New London Landmarks is a historical preservation nonprofit whose latest project is the renovation of the longtime home of Linwood Bland, Jr., founder and past president of the New London, Connecticut branch of the NAACP and author of a memoir of the Black experience of the mid-to-late 20thcentury in that city. When complete, New London Landmarks will break the link …
Since 2010, we have offered financing to charitable projects in Southeastern Connecticut, often involving the acquisition of property. Until recently, we did not have a local partner positioned to ensure the permanent affordability of the properties that have benefited from Equity Trust Fund loans, though we were happy to make those loans anyway because of the borrowers’ importance to …
Kroka Expeditions is a wilderness education school in southern New Hampshire. The campus includes many acres of forest, stream, and hill, plus a three-acre organic farm where they grow a portion of their vegetables, berries, milk, and eggs. A loan from Equity Trust in 2016 enabled them to purchase and protect prime farmland nearby that was under threat of development, …
A decade ago a landowner in western Massachusetts discovered remnants of potentially significant prehistoric stone formations on land she has been restoring to its pre-Columbian state as a natural orchard. While she sought to validate her observations and identify a long-term steward for the land, Equity Trust made a loan to enable her to purchase an adjacent property with additional …
Simple Gifts Farm is a community-oriented organic vegetable and meat operation stewarding the North Amherst Community Farm (NACF) in Amherst, MA, with a long-term lease agreement that Equity Trust played an important part in helping to create. NACF brought in Jeremy Barker Plotkin and Dave Tepfer as farmers in 2006 and they run the farm as an ecological unit, integrating …
The Coalition for Occupied Homes in Foreclosure (COHIF) is a Boston-based coalition of more than two dozen tenant, community, nonprofit, legal, and government agencies and organizations that came together in 2008 to work on keeping homeowners and tenants in their homes during and after the foreclosure process. It seeks to promote household and neighborhood stability and resident and community control …
Artemis Farm, in New Lebanon, a rural community located in the northeast corner of Columbia County, New York, is home to Cynthia Creech’s Randall cattle and her genetic preservation work to restore this hardy, historic breed. Randalls are a rare breed of purebred cattle developed in southern Vermont in the early 1900s, descended from the indigenous landrace cattle common in …
Sometimes we take on challenging loans – because the projects they support are innovative or intriguing, or because conventional lenders are wary of financing them – and usually we (and our borrowers) are rewarded. But they don’t always work out as planned, so we strive to be flexible enough to come up with a satisfactory alternative outcome.
When we made …
This loan financed some predevelopment work on what was planned to be the first cohousing community in Connecticut. It would have included thirteen affordable units among the thirty planned, as well as commercial agricultural land that could be made available on a long-term lease using the Equity Trust model. Unfortunately, when construction was almost complete, the community’s …
Full and By Farm (the name is a nautical term referring to steering into the wind) is a CSA operation farming agriculture-only conservation land purchased from the Eddy Foundation in northern New York. When farmers Sara Kurak and James Graves launched their farm, the land and infrastructure were suffering from years of neglect, but with big dreams and hard work …
The Reeves Home Place Farm, aka Whiskey Pigs Farm, is a 150-year-old seventh-generation family farm in the Little Sandy Mush region of North Carolina. They raise heritage cattle, pigs, and poultry on a beautiful and productive mountain pasture, supplementing the animals’ diet with whiskey mash from a local distiller. While they wait for an agricultural easement to be purchased …
The Voluntown Peace Trust (VPT) is a nonprofit educational center and retreat dedicated to social change and sustainable living, occupying 57 acres in southeastern Connecticut near New London. It provides hospitality and resources to “people constructing alternatives to the violence of our age” and serves as the home of the Cooperative for Nonviolent Action (CNVA), a coalition of grassroots groups …
The Food Project has been engaging young people in sustainable agriculture since 1991. Each year, 150 teenagers from Greater Boston and the North Shore of Massachusetts are engaged in meaningful work leading volunteers and growing food in Lincoln, Boston, Beverly, and Lynn. The produce from the farms is donated to hunger relief organizations, sold at farmers’ markets and through CSA …
Crimson & Clover Farm is the CSA vegetable operation chosen by Grow Food Northampton to lease the Northampton Community Farm that Equity Trust played an important part in helping to create. In 2013, Crimson & Clover received a loan to enable it to purchase a leasehold interest in the barns and other structures that belong to the farm. 
Stone Soup is a coalition of community groups, grassroots activists, and artists who came together in 2006 to serve a disadvantaged neighborhood in central Massachusetts through a variety of projects and activities – most notably the establishment of a community center that functions as a neighborhood anchor and safe haven for children and adults. 
The Lockhart Family Farm is a small family farm in Caroline County, Virginia, dedicated to a triple bottom line of social and environmental returns along with profitability. In addition to heirloom vegetables, flowers, fruits, value-added products such as soaps and preserves, it raises heritage pigs and turkeys on a CSA-like model. 
Co-op Power is a consumer-owned renewable energy cooperative operating as a decentralized regional network of autonomous Local Organizing Councils (LOCs) to “create a multi-class, multi-racial movement for a sustainable and just energy future.” Equity Trust’s loan will help Co-op Power, through the Southern Vermont LOC, develop a 30.6 KWP solar electric (photovoltaic) system on the roof of the brand new Brattleboro Food Co-op building in downtown Brattleboro, VT. 
Just Food is a non-profit organization that works to make fresh, locally grown food accessible to all New Yorkers by connecting communities and local farms with resources, support and one another. Since 1995, Just Food has promoted the creation and spread of sustainable food programs, including CSAs, community-run farmers’ markets, community gardens, and farm-to-food pantry programs. Just Food serves thousands …
Whippoorwill Farm, a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Farm serving some 400 families on Martha’s Vineyard, in Massachusetts. Whippoorwill grows organic produce and flowers for its members, for local restaurants, and for sale at farmers markets. Equity Trust provided a cash flow loan to help the farm manage as it adjusts marketing strategies to changes in the island economy and …
Jeff and Annie Main have been developing their organic farm, Good Humus Produce, on 20 acres in Capay, CA, since 1976. When they arrived on the property northwest of Sacramento in Yolo County, there was a single olive tree. The Mains built a beautiful house, a barn, greenhouses, and other infrastructure and their plantings include hedgerows of native trees …
H.O.M.E, Inc. (originally Homeworkers Organized for More Employment) in Orland, ME, was organized in 1970 when a local shoe manufacturer closed its doors. Under the leadership of Sister Lucy Poulin, H.O.M.E emerged as a craft collective to generate home-based work and market the products as a source of income for the women who had been doing skilled piecework for the …
Pie Ranch, a non-profit in San Mateo County, California, combines farming and education to “inspire and connect rural and urban people to know the source of their food, and work together to bring greater health to the food system from seed to table.” Equity Trust’s land acquisition loan, one of our largest in recent years, supports the purchase and permanent protection of their farmland. Pie Ranch’s diverse production of fruits, vegetables, …
Equity Trust’s loan to the Newtown Florist Club, in Gainsville, GA, enabled them to purchase four lots to build four CLT homes for low-income families as part of a long-term effort to strengthen and care for their community.
Sixty years ago, a group of African American women established the Newtown Florist Club to provide aid to neighborhood families during bereavement. …
Windborne Farm operates a CSA in Ft. Jones, California that provides grain, beans, edible seeds, and cheese to 100 families. The crops are cultivated with a team of Fjord draft horses using biodynamic methods. Our loan financed start-up costs at a time when few people thought it would be possible to market grain using the CSA model. To our great …
Southside Community Land Trust (SCLT) in Providence, Rhode Island, provides access to land, education and other resources so people in Greater Providence can grow food in environmentally sustainable ways and create community food systems where locally produced, affordable, and healthy food is available to all. SCLT manages a wide range of urban agriculture programs including youth and adult agricultural education, …
Real Pickles, a small Western Massachusetts business producing organic raw pickled products, received a loan from the Equity Trust Fund in 2009 to help finance a the purchase and renovation of an energy efficient processing facility. The purchase is enabling Real Pickles to expand its business and continue contributing to the local food movement. 
White Earth Land Recovery Project (WELRP)’s mission is to facilitate recovery of the original land base of the White Earth Indian Reservation, in northern Minnesota, while preserving and restoring traditional land stewardship, language fluency, community development, and spiritual and cultural practices. A key strategy is to purchase back land from non-Indian owners, and receive donated land. Currently only 10% …
Holyoke Community Land Trust, in Holyoke, Massachusetts, provides quality homes to low-income families, with a commitment to increasing resident homeownership. Residents own their own homes, but the land beneath is held by the nonprofit, to ensure owner-occupancy and on-going affordability. Formed in 1992, after a recent several-year period of dormancy it was reinvigorated in early 2010. A cash-flow loan from …
