Retired Patriot Matt Light’s Fundraising Begins at a Glocester Flower Farm

There’s something unexpected about the idea of a retired NFL player hand-cutting flowers while the rest of Rhode Island sleeps. Yet for retired Patriots offensive tackle and three-time Super Bowl champion Matt Light, it feels inevitable. For two weeks every spring, the Light family climbs out of bed before dawn to harvest peonies from the 2,000 plants that blanket a portion of Hickory Fields Farm, the 300-acre farm in the Glocester village of Chepachet they purchased in 2023.

The flowers are just one branch of a larger mission. During his rookie year in 2001, Light founded the Light Foundation, an Ohio-based nonprofit that introduces young men from urban areas to opportunities to develop leadership skills. Light’s daughter Grace, who lives on the farm with her parents, says of her father, “I think he noticed how much people supported him and his success, and he wanted to give back in the biggest way he could.”

Its flagship program, Camp Vohokase, with locations around the country, brings together 18 at-risk high school boys for 10 days each summer to learn practical outdoor skills alongside lessons in accountability, leadership, and responsibility. Four freshmen are selected each year and commit to returning through graduation, building relationships grounded in accountability that last beyond a single summer. In addition to the camps, The Light Foundation runs a reading program for first graders, a football camp, and a fishing program that helps kids and families engage with the outdoors.

Light and his wife, Susie, grew up in the Midwest, and although Matt’s football career brought him to Foxboro, it never pulled his heart from the rural community he loved. “Living in Foxboro was a big adjustment for him,” said Grace. “He always craved the farming lifestyle.” When the Glocester property became available, it was a dream come true because it provided an opportunity to support The Light Foundation while giving him the rural life his heart sought. “He’s on the tractor in the fields most days,” Grace says of her dad. “He takes down barns, hunts, and runs the foundation. He’s the busiest retired person I know, and I think the farm is a break for him.”

The peonies were a happy accident planted by the previous owner of the farm, which led the Lights to get involved in yet another foundation, Winston Flowers’ Charity in Bloom. Each month, the Boston-based florist creates a seasonal bouquet and donates a portion of the proceeds to a different nonprofit. During peony season, Winston Flowers collects the family’s flowers, creates and sells bouquets, and then donates a portion of its proceeds to The Light Foundation.

But the organization’s biggest annual fundraiser, the Matt Light Celebrity Shootout, takes place every fall at Addieville East Farm in Mapleville. There, 500 attendees from across the country compete alongside Light, SEAL Team Six, and Delta Force members, as well as other celebrities, in activities such as clay shooting, axe throwing, and fly fishing. “We raise a million dollars in a day, and as a result, the kids who go to Camp Vohokase never pay a dime,” says Grace. But for her, the event is also a family reunion as her Midwest relatives descend on Rhode Island once a year.

In fact, the whole foundation is a bit of a family affair, made up of relatives and their chosen family of boys who come through the program. “My parents, aunts, and uncles cook all the meals at camp. Kids who go through the program come back as counselors,” Grace says. “There are a lot of athletes and former athletes who just stick their name on a charity. But in our case, our entire family is involved.” 

And that’s why next spring the Light family will once again spend two weeks cutting peonies by the light of the sunrise. Although the flowers they’re cultivating last just a few weeks, the values they’re cultivating in future leaders will last much longer. Learn more at MattLight72.com.