Revive the Roots, a nonprofit organization based in Smithfield, is dedicated to cultivating spaces where people and the environment thrive through sustainable practices, community building, and education. The organization stewards Mowry Commons, a unique 23-acre landscape that offers walking trails, sustainable agriculture fields, permaculture and pollinator gardens, and spaces to wash, store, and process the produce grown on site. The land is a gathering space, a place where people can harmoniously experience the natural world.
As part of Revive the Roots’ efforts to bring together the local community with the local ecosystem, the organization presents its annual fall festival, Rootstock. Now in its fourth year, the festival acts as a “capstone to the harvest season, a capstone to the year,” Hannah Martin, the executive director of Revive the Roots explains. Rootstock is a family-friendly day-time celebration of nature, welcoming autumn, and a chance to recognize the community work the organization has achieved. “It’s a day to gather a big group of us to celebrate everything Revive the Roots was in year one to what it is now. But it’s also a chance to give our platform and what we do a larger reach, and it creates a starting point for long-term relationships between community members and Mowry Commons,” Martin explains.
Rootstock was born out of the idea of “community.” Revive the Roots had a history of hosting festivals like the Vernal Festival and the Growth and New Beginnings Festival, but none of them had longevity. 2021 marked the organization’s ten-year anniversary, and “we really wanted to bring back a festival that people could look forward to all year round,” says Martin. With a “go big or go home” mindset, Revive the Roots brainstormed ways to make a nature celebration appealing and inclusive to the community they serve. Staples of the festival include music in the style of “Rootstock sound” – folk rock with notes of psychedelia, grunge, and punk – arts and crafts in partnership with the Artists’ Exchange, and, of course, access to the walking trails along the grounds of Mowry Commons.
The name of the festival is a double entendre. While “Rootstock” does seem to pay homage to the historical “Woodstock,” the term “rootstock” is a real word. “The cheapest trees you can buy are rootstocks. They are hardy young trees you can plant, but they are made to have something grafted onto them,” Martin explains. Revive the Roots uses the term as a tongue-in-cheek way to be self-referential: they are a “scrappy,” non-profit organization that is doing their best to create a foundation on which they can later “bear fruit” (the fruit being events like Rootstock and other community outreach programs). With Rootstock, Revive the Roots has certainly been reaping a harvest. Last year, their musical lineup was nominated for Best Americana Festival by Motif. And, since the organization’s initial partnership with the Artists’ Exchange in 2016, that working relationship has blossomed into creating a sheep husbandry program for adults with disabilities with the wool from the sheep being used to run sustainable fiber arts programming.
With this year’s Rootstock featuring seven regional bands, inflatables by Pneuhaus, a fantasy greenhouse for pick-your-own bouquets, food, and special Share Spaces, the festival aims to be as diverse as the local ecosystem on which it inhabits. The Share Space programming runs across three tents, with pre-approved community members giving 40-minute presentations about something they are excited about, from fairy huts to beekeeping, cyanotype art to herbalism. Some presentations might be structured as mini TEDTalks, while others will be more interactive and accessible to younger audiences, like the Microscope Discovery presentation.
Martin hopes that diverse programming will make this year the best festival to date: “As someone who’s been involved on the organization side of things for all four years, it feels like we are really hitting our stride.” While the Internet might label a festival like this as an access point into the “crunchy community,” Martin wears the identity with pride and encourages anyone curious about the festival to join in the celebration. “You don’t have to show up wearing Birkenstocks to be accepted,” she jokes. It’s simply about showing up to enjoy being outside, coexisting with nature, and meeting other community members. “It’s a vibe,” she promises.
The fourth annual Rootstock will take place this year on Sunday, September 22, 2024, at Mowry Commons from 12-6 p.m. Tickets to the festival are by donation, and all proceeds go towards Revive the Roots’ budget for next year. If you can’t make the festival, Mowry Commons is open to the public dawn to dusk year-round, and the organization has volunteer days for people interested in working in nature to give back to the local community, like working in the gardens to grow produce for Hope’s Harvest, an organization that combats local hunger.
