Mary McNamara

In our initial conversation over email, Marys excitement about The Farmlink Project seeped through her words. Im so impressed with so many talented young minds, she wrote. I follow you all on Twitter and read the articles about the amazing people that are the creative talent and can do people.

A self-proclaimed tree hugger, Mary is all about the environment. Shes a nerd, loves to read, has a great family and a relationship with her faith. As an intervention specialist in a local middle school, she has a special passion for young people and the change they make in this world. 

In early 2020, Mary was watching ABC Nightly News and heard that excess potatoes and milk were being dumped as a result of the hardships of the pandemic. She was floored. She looked at the screen and said, the young people will solve this. So, two weeks later, when she saw ABC highlight The Farmlink Projects effort to transport potatoes, she screamed with excitement. Since that moment, Mary has been donating whenever she can and even has the original Farmlink t-shirt. 

When she heard our first anniversary was nearing last year, she attended our virtual birthday party decked out in a lei with balloons wearing her Farmlink shirt. Although her kids were horrified, she thought people would dress up because it was the birthday party. So it was the first year anniversary and I was like the [only] one dressed up!

She said she was so excited to celebrate because when you look at [what it took for] Farmlink to get to that milestone, and now a two year milestone, its really amazing. Its one thing to lead during a pandemic when its like, Hey what is going on, and to still persevere through the first six months and year. To have people such as you engaged, to have all of these brilliant minds to come together, and not only continue what Farmlink is doing, but take it exponentially further, is crazy. 

Mary has two birthday wishes for The Farmlink Project. First, she wants The Farmlink Project to share its knowledge about protecting the environment with everyone possible. Second, that [the team] start tapping into our high school and middle school students to use their energy to help propel Farmlink.

Quoting Bono (U2 singer, songwriter, and philanthropist), Mary emphasized that if you want to eliminate hunger, everyone has to be involved. She hopes that The Farmlink Project takes this sentiment into consideration and runs with it into year three and beyond.