Ashfield MVP Action Grant: Living Culture and Rural Climate Resilience

Project Summary

The Town of Ashfield, Double Edge Theater, Ohketeau Cultural Center, and other community partners explored how Ashfield could be a hub for regional rural resilience, starting with concrete collaborative action around three Focus Areas: 1) Expansion of clean and resilient energy; 2) Integration of nature-based climate solutions; and 3) Development of resilient, energy-efficient affordable housing. To explore these focus areas, the project team hosted a series of engagement events and activities, including community dinners and listening sessions, site tours, and a town-wide Community Resilience Day. Through these activities, this project facilitated new pathways for collaboration, mutual learning, and resource-sharing between community partners, with the ultimate goal of building relationships and community capacity for equitable resilience planning.

Community Overview

Ashfield is a rural community of approximately 1,700 residents with a long agricultural history and abundant natural beauty. Located in the Hilltowns of Western Massachusetts on Nipmuc land, the community has experienced demographic shifts toward an older population. The economic viability of farming and other land-based livelihoods face increasing challenges from a broad range of factors including rising land values and housing costs, development pressures, pests and invasive species, and climate change. 

Grant Details

• Year: FY25
• Project Type: Type 1: Planning, Assessments, Capacity Building, and Regulatory Updates
• MVP Region: Berkshires & Hilltowns
• Grant Amount: $166,000
• Municipal Lead: Town Administrator

MVP Core Principles 

While this project addressed multiple MVP Core Principles, it primarily focused on:

1. Building community capacity for climate resilience
2. Conducting robust community engagement and supporting strong EJ partnerships
3. Achieving broad and multiple community benefits

Project Goals

• Create new opportunities for local organizations, community members, and Town staff to discuss goals and ideas related to three topics in Ashfield: clean energy, nature-based resilience solutions, and affordable housing;
• Identify avenues for community partners and the Town to collaborate on future projects and grant proposals to achieve community goals related to the project focus areas;
• Grow Ashfield’s potential for creative collaboration and leadership on rural climate and community resilience in the region.

Results and Deliverables

• Successfully engaged many folks in Ashfield who do not typically participate in municipal governance processes, in a way that focused on developing long-term relationships and ongoing collaboration, so that the project can be a catalyst for more inclusive Town planning and decision-making moving forward.
• Several collaborative opportunities, including clean energy grants and initiatives and potential future MVP Action Grant projects, were identified in the process.
• Highlighted the significant contributions, value, and interest among youth in supporting the town’s planning processes. 

• Many events were held, including community dinners, site tours, interviews led by youth community liaisons, and a community resilience day celebration. Over 400 residents participated in these events!
• Project team members attended meetings of Town Boards and Committees, held meetings with individual residents and small groups representing a variety of interests and expertise in town, connected with staff from neighboring municipalities, FRCOG (regional planning agency), and state government, and engaged extensively with representatives from the regional school district.

• Key project deliverables include summaries of all project events, a 2-page brief synthesizing available research on rural resilience hubs, written and visual project summaries, and an in-depth case study about the project as a whole. All of these deliverables, along with photos and recordings from the community dinners and interview responses gathered by the project’s youth liaisons, are available on the Ashfield project webpage.

Partners and Other Support

• Ashfield Energy Committee collaborated on a site tour and supported community participation in the project.
• Double Edge Theatre facilitated community dinners, site tours and Community Resilience Day events and coordinated involvement of the Mohawk Trail Regional School youth liaisons.
• Ohketeau Cultural Center ensured project planning and deliverables reflected local Indigenous values, voices, and perspectives.
• UMass Arts Extension Service documented the project in detail.
• Culture Climate Strategy and Collaborate Climate provided planning, project management, and strategic support.

Project partner Double Edge Theatre is an ensemble-based theater collective and a major local employer with over 40 full-time staff, and project partner Ohketeau Cultural Center is an Indigenous cultural center based in Ashfield that serves all of Central and Western Massachusetts. Both organizations serve and support local Environmental Justice populations. The presence of these two arts and cultural nonprofits contributes to the diversity of Ashfield’s community and attracts thousands of visitors to the town annually.

Lessons Learned

• The challenges and necessities of relational work: It takes time and effort to reach out to folks, be in communication, and have them join events or meet with them separately. Relationship-building advances trust and makes inclusive and equitable collective action possible.
• Authentic representation of Native perspectives requires building context and awareness of their unique realities. This takes time, continuous effort, and robust representation, which can be challenging to cultivate yet powerful when prioritized.
• There is strong interest in sharing community spaces more often. People feel the effects of isolation in modern life, and are eager to come together, yet sometimes need resources like transportation or childcare to make this realistic.
• People are interested in different types of housing to make Ashfield more affordable for residents from all different backgrounds and stages of life and are eager to explore creative ways to balance the need for affordable housing with support for the farming community, conservation priorities, clean energy, and nature-based solutions for climate resilience.