Letter from the Editor

It’s hard to know how to start a letter right now — nothing seems big or small enough. Our world has both drastically shrunk to our own homes and reached a new level of global connectivity. Anxiety and stress have spiked (and stayed there), but every day I see people finding joy in the world around them. This is most apparent to me in the daily walks I take with my dog and husband in the woods close to our house. 

I love that people, confined to their homes, are reaching out for solace in nature. It’s where I’ve always gone for comfort. But busy trails are not why I head to the woods, and so we’ve pushed our walks farther into the woods, on trails we didn’t know existed.

This forced exploration has been a real joy in the past month, allowing us to see our familiar trails with new eyes and to find new treasures on paths well worn by others before us. (It also allows us to easily maintain a safe distance from others, of course.) On a recent walk, I found a gnarled and bent tree folded over, stopped before it had reached its full height. But out of the top of the bend rose a new branch, straight and tall, the start of a new trunk growing from the old one.

This new growth, slightly off center from the old, seemed a perfect metaphor for these times. With much of the world stopped in its tracks, we must all find new ways to grow up and out of our old lives. Many things will not look the same after this, nor should they.

But still that leaves the present — what do we do right now? Like everyone, we have been pondering this question for myself but also for Provisions. And right now, a print magazine isn’t making a lot of sense, so we’ve decided to pause publication. But we are not pausing our storytelling. We are working on a project to bring you the stories of local food producers, many of whom are essential yet struggling. Please stay tuned to social media and our website for that.

We are also working on ways to continue our greater mission of supporting local food in Pennsylvania, so if you have an idea, please reach out. Now is the time for creativity and collaboration. 

We started a Facebook group called Eat Local Centre County, where members are sharing ways they’re supporting local food, from farmers markets to restaurant takeout. I’ve been heartened by the outpouring of interest in that group, and I’m hopeful that this newfound appreciation for a local food supply remains strong, even after we come out on the other side of this. 

Because we will come out on the other side, but the world will look very different. I encourage you to support the businesses you’d like to be there on the other side — one order means very little to multinational corporations, but it means everything to your neighbors trying to keep their businesses alive to support their families. 

Thank you for your support of local, including Provisions, which couldn’t have gotten to this point without a lot of people.

Onward and upward, apart together.

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