Rooted in Innovation: Care Farming Network and the Rise of a New Kind of Farming in America
By Kate Mudge, Co-Director, Care Farming Network In a sun-soaked field in Tennessee, a group of adults with developmental disabilities tend to rows of vegetables at Old School Farm. In Maryland, veterans recovering from PTSD care for honeybees at Mission Beelieve. At Desert Survivors in Tucson, adults with disabilities gain work experience at a native […]
Care Farms Cultivate Healing Across Delaware
Care farms provide growth and recovery through the power of nature. By Olivia Montes Ally Kennedy, founder of Grateful Acres, holds Greta, a hen who lives on the farm. Photographs by Angie Gray. Off a busy Delaware highway, down a gravel road, and just beyond a blooming green meadow stands a barn. If […]
The Lands at Hillside Farms
Shavertown, Pennsylvania Nestled on 428 acres of scenic countryside, The Lands at Hillside Farms is a historic, non-profit educational dairy farm with a mission that reaches far beyond its fences. As a 501(c)(3) organization, Hillside Farms is dedicated to teaching life choices that are healthy, logical, and sustainable—ensuring that future generations, even 200 years from […]
Midnight Farm
Every adult with intellectual or developmental disabilities deserves a quiet place to relax, unwind, and recharge. Midnight Farm offers visitors a chance to relax in nature, explore their creativity, and connect with others at a beautiful, 40-acre farm in Douglas County, KS. Many adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities receive lifelong support yet crave the […]
The Specialty Crop
The Specialty Crop LLC is a five acre farmstead that focuses on agritourism in SD through farmstay/camping and events, and the Specialty Crop Collaborative is our nonprofit and deep calling at the farm. The Collaborative provides programming for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Programming focuses on job and life skill training through agricultural […]
From Hobby to Mission: Ending Food Insecurity in the DC area
Fields 4 Valor Farms was featured on Good Morning America. Watch as founder Peter Scott shares how he is farming to help food-insecure veterans in the D.C. region.
GROW HUB: Cultivate, Empower, Assist
GROW HUB, (Growing Real Opportunities to Work—Harvest of Urban Business), a 501c3 not-for-profit, was incorporated in 2016 to meet a critical need faced by both local students and adults of varying abilities who complete their schooling at age 22, and have limited options for meaningful employment. GROW HUB is a beautiful and safe place where […]
A Different Kind of Farm
“A surging number of U.S. farms are giving people with developmental disabilities self-confidence, community, and connection.“ When Guthrie, a 32-year-old Albuquerque resident with intellectual and developmental disabilities, started working at Mandy’s Farm, he was quiet and lacking in confidence. Over the next few months, he learned how to cultivate soil, grow crops such as tomatoes and […]
“Cultivating More Than Crops”
“Care farming” could help farms diversify and foster a deeper connection between nourishing the body and feeding the soul. “I met Muhammad Ayub of Dancing Goats and Singing Chickens Organic Farm in the Harmony Garden — a heart-shaped covered terrace, filled with flowering plants and vines — to talk about steps they were taking to become a […]
Simple Sparrow Care Farm offers mental health care, soothing experiences
BY ABBEY ARCHER A 16-year-old-boy was sitting in the waiting room with his hood on, unwilling to participate in his therapy. Marti Smith, occupational therapist and co-founder of Simple Sparrow Care Farm, observed that he was downregulated, feeling hopeless and depressed. She sent a text the farm’s founder, Jamie Tanner, and told her to “get […]