CARE FARMING NETWORK BLOG

Esther Manor Farm
Esther Manor Farm is a Black owned, female-owned farm in the heart of Virginia
Services Offered:
- Grow African ethnic produce and contribute to sustainable farming
- Provide a nurturing space for children and adults with disability
- Create a cross-cultural community around food and farming
- Connect to nature and its abundance
- Foster global networks and facilitate cross-cultural understanding
Our Philosophy
- Family is at the heart of our business
- We support women entrepreneurs, people with disabilities, and fellow farmers
- We create an inclusive culture that values all types of diversity-race, ethnicity, class, ability, religion, age
- We know that amazing things happen when you follow your heart and live your purpose
Esther Manor Farm is, among many beautiful things, inspired by a mom's desire to create a meaningful vocational and social path for her adult son with autism.
Donate to Esther Manor Farm to install a Well and Irrigation System: https://gofund.me/1f633d2e
March Monthly Member Gathering Recording
Gabrielle Zwi is a community organizer, educator, and musician in Rockville, Maryland. They joined Care Farming Network’s team in May 2022 as the Social Media Manager. For the past 10 years, Gabrielle has been managing social media pages across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok for nonprofits, businesses, and their own musical endeavors. As an autistic self-advocate, Gabrielle runs the Instagram page @AutismAwareness (with over 13k followers), through which they share educational and entertaining content from an #ActuallyAutistic lens. Gabrielle’s brother participates in a job training program with one of CFN’s member farms (and absolutely loves it), so Gabrielle is very passionate about the empowerment and social opportunities that Care Farms are able to provide. You can find Gabrielle almost anywhere online with the username @GabrielleZwi, or through their website www.gabriellezwi.com.
A very comprehensive website with lots of free resources, tutorials, etc for making social media accessible to a wide range of disabilities/accessibility needs: https://www.accessible-social.
Similar: https://socialforevery.one/
A much more simplified social media accessibility guide: https://accessibility.umn.edu/
Post automation between platforms
Meta Business Suite - the best to use for Facebook and Instagram: https://business.facebook.com/
If This Then That (IFTTT) - works across many more social media websites/apps but I only recommend this if your top priority is saving time/staying off of social media apps: https://ifttt.com/
Designing posts:
Canva Pro is free for nonprofits with a quick and easy application! This gives you access to the full power of Canva's tools. You can apply at https://www.canva.com/canva-
Phonto - a free app for phones and tablets: https://phon.to/download
Dafont and similar websites allow you to download free fonts that you can import into Phonto and other apps/software: https://www.dafont.com
Care Farming Network Helps Students Grow Their Knowledge
We were thrilled to present a session on care farming in the United States to students at Warren Wilson College: "Growing Resilience: Care Farming in the Netherlands" is a new class offered by Professor Sarah Himmelheber which culminates in a 2-week trip to the Netherlands to spend time on care farms, like Noorderhoeve.
What a pleasure it was to discuss and highlight the care farms operating in the US and talk about CFN's work to increase awareness and build capacity + connection among US-based care farms. The class explores care farming, or the use of farming tasks and practices towards a therapeutic aim. Students are introduced to the typical needs of populations served by care farms including older adults, people with SPMIs, people with ID/DD, people coping with addiction, among others. During the campus-based portion of the course, students plan on visiting multiple facilities in the region that utilize interaction with plants and animals as therapeutic interventions Students will gain hands-on interaction with plants and animals as preparation for participation with the Noorderhoeve care farm in the Netherlands.
As care farming is better understood in the United States, it's heartening to see that colleges like Warren Wilson are teaching about care farming practices, modalities, and providing exposure and awareness about care farming!

