Save the Date!
21st Annual Harvest Supper
Saturday, August 22, 2026
Celebrating local food, farms, and community!
FARM-TO-TABLE FEAST - FACE PAINTING - ART-MAKING - LIVE MUSIC!
Every August, the Franklin County community comes together to share the bountiful summer harvest! Farmers, local producers of goods, and talented chefs all donate their time, talent, and products to create an amazing meal served on the Greenfield Town Common! Enjoy a nourishing, chef-prepared meal made with ingredients donated by more than 50 local farms and producers from across the Pioneer Valley. This supper is made for neighbors, by neighbors! It takes a whole community to make a great community event.
Harvest Supper Memory Album 2025 by Stone Soup
Share your memories and photos from Harvest Supper here.
What began in 2005 with a vision from the late Juanita Nelson—a civil rights activist, pacifist, and fierce advocate for local food—has become one of Greenfield’s most cherished annual traditions.
Harvest Supper is agrotourism in action—a true “Taste of the Valley” experience that draws people into downtown Greenfield to celebrate everything that makes this region so abundant and unique. No other event brings together this level of community collaboration and local agricultural richness.
The meal is a gift to the community, offered on a pay-what-you-can basis. We welcome anyone to give what they can to help defray the costs of the meal.The "Really, Really Free Market" is another way community members can contribute to the Harvest Supper. Gardeners and farmers are welcome to bring any extra produce they have, and, as the name suggests, all of the produce is free to take home. Just bring your veggies to the town common between 4pm and 5pm.
History of Harvest Supper
The Harvest Supper was created when a group of passionate farmers, foodies, and community advocates believed that all our neighbors should be able to access the amazing abundance of food in our happy valley. It was started in 2005 by Juanita Nelson. She was an ardent pacifist, war tax resister, civil rights activist, and supporter of local, organic agriculture. She and her husband, Wally, helped found the Pioneer Valley War Tax Resisters, the Greenfield Farmers Market, and the Valley Community Land Trust. After Wally's death in 2002, she was instrumental in launching Greenfield’s "Free Harvest Supper," which has since become an annual tradition in the community ever since!
Nelson, a lifelong activist arrested numerous times at tax resistance and civil rights protests during the 1960s and 1970s and beyond, moved to Deerfield with her husband, Wally, in 1974 to practice organic farming.
For the Nelsons, encouraging people to grow their own food and to support local farming as part of the local economy was another expression of their all-encompassing nonviolence, expressing their will through their lives against agribusiness and an exploitative economic system. Juanita Nelson died in 2015 at the age of 91.
Listen to a Podcast about Juanita Nelson
Sponsor the Event!
Showcase your business to over 150 volunteers and hundreds of Greenfield residents!
Help us fund this uniquely Greenfield event and support the ongoing mission of Stone Soup Café.
We have multiple sponsorship levels available for this year’s 20th Annual Harvest Supper. (See adjacent image.)
DEADLINE TO SPONSOR IS AUGUST 1, 2026.
If you’d like to be a sponsor, please go to our giving page here: givebutter.com/sponsor-stone-soup or send a check to Stone Soup Café PO Box 57, Greenfield MA 01302
