Read our latest Donor Interview below!

Donor profile: Robin McGraw, of the Donald C. McGraw and Black Rock Foundation

Robin McGraw is a long time supporter of Berkshire Bounty in many ways! Berkshire Bounty had the opportunity to sit down with Robin and talk about his work with the aquaponics facility that grows lettuce for Berkshire Bounty. We talked to him about this and his other development work in Berkshire County:

When did you come to the Berkshires? 

I went to high school at the Berkshire School. I was recruited back by my soccer coach who wanted me to take over the soccer program 34 years ago. I've been involved with the Berkshires ever since. 

I know that you're really involved as a donor and on the boards of a number of Berkshires nonprofits. What inspires your involvement and your giving?

My real focus is on human services, healthcare, and education. Having been an educator for 20+ years, I never really got away from education. I believe that anything that's helping to educate our youth or provide educational services, especially to our emerging immigrant population, is really important in Berkshire County. 

I went to work on the drug task force, really to focus on educating around the opioid crisis and to fight it. About two years into that job, I took another assignment at the jail to build the first aquaponic growing facility of its kind which, as you know, grows the lettuce that we donate to Berkshire Bounty. We also have 35 raised beds, 45 fruit trees, 40 blueberry bushes, herb beds, four beehives, and a perennial garden. All the produce is given away, which is a great thing.  

As you’ve mentioned, you've donated lettuce grown in an aquaponics greenhouse to Berkshire Bounty. How did this program get established? Where do you see it going? 

The superintendent of the Berkshire County jailhouse, Jack Quinn, was on a plane and sat next to the Executive Director of a program that taught aquaponics to juvenile offenders–his name was Sam Fleming, Jack came back with this idea to bring this program to Berkshire County’s high risk inmates.  

I went down to check out Sam’s program, and I came back and I said: we should build a greenhouse and have the inmates work there all year, and we'll come up with an educational program that they get benefit from. The idea was to help them with their self esteem, show what it means to work as a member of a team, what it means to be responsible every day for stuff that is important. Sam came on as a partner, we designed a facility, and we built it. We did some creative designing that no one else had done. 

We planted the first seeds in January 2020, and our first harvest was at the end of February. We designed another facility for the Plymouth County Jail. We're doing one, hopefully, for Essex and Middlesex counties. I got the former governor and the lieutenant governor to buy into it. And now I'm trying to get the current governor on board, She believes in in not just aquaponics and also in anything we can do to help with food vulnerability. 

If you were to name nonprofit work that's closest to your heart what would it be? 

I don't know if I have a favorite. One involvement led into another. For example, when I started with Volunteers in Medicine, I got on the board less than six months into its inception. And that clinic now offers services that are above and beyond that of a healthcare clinic. I've been through cancer twice and all sorts of stuff. I’m blessed with good insurance and good options. But, health care, in my opinion, is a right, and so we work hard to make that happen.

And of course, I was exposed to and got familiar with the issue of food insecurity and the housing crisis. It's hard to live in a place like Western Mass and see that people are so vulnerable. We've worked really hard to address that vulnerability with the aquaponic growing facility. To date, we've given away about 350,000 heads of lettuce. 

I think most helpful with many of the organizations I’m involved with is that our foundations are able to give a leadership gift–a match to help with fundraising. It's really about trying to help them be more sustainable and bring new money into their operation.

I know I speak for many in our community with my heartfelt thanks for all of Robin’s work and generosity!