The gravel road winds past whispering pines and sunlit fields, giving way to a wooden sign: Fox Moon Farm. Beyond it lies 60 acres of wild serenity deep within King and Queen County, with meadows stitched with clover, a glassy lake, and the low murmur of horses shifting in the pasture.

It is a place where time seems to stretch and soften, where nature and compassion braid together like strands of a bridle, and where a truly unique and enriching project was formed. For the people who come here, including children with autism, adults living with dementia, and parents weary from worry, this is more than a farm. It is a sanctuary.

The Fox Moon Farm Project began as a dream to “be of service.” Co-founded by Cindy Freishtat and Maria Flint, the nonprofit was born from a search for something real and rooted. It was a calling that would bring immeasurable meaning to their lives and to the lives of others.

Maria always dreamed of a farm for healing where people could gather to build community and connection. Cindy knew firsthand the healing powers of horses, having grown up with them, and was later inspired by her father, who had dementia, to create a nonprofit to help others in need.

The farm’s motto is simple: We Grow People.

“Growing people” means many things, but one of the most important traits the Fox Moon Farm Project cultivates is hope. For some, hope means their child developing the skills to live independently one day. For another, it is overcoming depression. For someone else, it is the hope of friendship and a chance to go to prom. The magic created here is not limited by age, gender, or background. It is palpable, and every visitor can feel and benefit from it.

In addition to the children who come to the farm daily for sessions, whether through Social Services programs or self-pay, the farm welcomes everyone. Twice a month, a gathering of amazing people with intellectual and developmental disabilities from Transitions Day Support Services comes to spend time with horses and other animals.

Participants pet and groom the horses, hold baby goats, garden, and help with other barn chores. Each activity is designed to engage the mind and calm the nervous system.

“They connect on a spiritual level, on an emotional level, on a physical level,” explained Fox Moon Farm equine specialist Kiele Marston. “You can just see the smiles come out. You can see them getting out of their van with anxiety and transforming into just happiness. It is amazing to experience.”

Healing at Fox Moon Farm takes many forms. Sometimes it is the quiet pace of a horse’s huff, and sometimes it is the spark that happens when connection replaces fear.

When 17-year-old Matt first arrived, he was nonverbal. His eyes darted between the sky and the ground, never meeting anyone else. Freishtat, who runs the farm’s Healing with Horses program, said that while initially nervous, he soon became a beloved visitor.

“He is just very special to me,” she said. “Maybe it is because he is one of my first, I do not know, but I have been working with him for quite some time.” The connection came not through words but through rhythm.

“You have to find what attracts and engages them, and I quickly learned that for Matt it was music,” she said. “I started singing, and I started clapping and we started drumming.”

Music became their bridge, and in the months that followed, something miraculous happened. Matt began to practice verbal skills. He started following directions, driving the tractor and laughing out loud.

“One of the most powerful things that has happened with Matt is that he is starting to learn language,” Freishtat said. “He is finding his way into the world.”

At Fox Moon Farm, children with special needs learn through movement and touch. From brushing the coats of horses to gathering eggs or tending to the Community Garden that helps feed local families, every task builds confidence and helps create a calm space.

“A lot of these kids need to be outside. They need to be in a farm environment, and they need to be with animals,” Freishtat explained. “We were out in a big field, and I put Matt’s hands on the wheel, and I was like, ‘Let’s go.’”

The tractor rolled forward, the wind caught their laughter, and for a moment, everything was perfect.  Driving the tractor has been a massive self-confidence boost for Matt, and it means there is real hope that he can one day drive a car all by himself.

“To be a parent of a child with special needs is so hard on so many levels,” Freishtat said. “And to see your child doing things that you never thought they might be able to do, whether saying words, driving a tractor, or opening gates and following directions… you know what we do? We give them hope.”

Hope, it turns out, is Fox Moon Farm’s truest crop.

The Healing with Horses program is part of a larger picture, one that continues to evolve. In addition, the farm hosts private family and friends Gathering Spaces. Whether you are celebrating a special occasion, having a family reunion or simply wanting to catch your breath, the farm offers the perfect backdrop for meaningful connections and inspiration. Dive into their beautiful lake for a swim or take a boat ride while soaking in the stunning views. All of the spaces are rentable by the day. Even the farm’s newest addition, Soul Moon Cove, builds that vision. Nestled by a six-acre lake beneath cathedral-high oaks, it serves as a retreat space for yoga, art, and empowerment workshops.

“It is a place to rest and rediscover yourself,” Flint said. “People come here to heal, to learn, to breathe.”

Hope also comes in the form of their Community Garden, a program designed to support families experiencing food insecurity in King and Queen County, as well as surrounding counties. Tended to by loving hands, the farm harvests and delivers thousands of pounds of organic produce to families in need each year, and there is more on the horizon. 

Behind the scenes, another dream is taking shape: the Forest Trail Project. The team has been carefully crafting a network of winding paths through the surrounding woods, serving as a living classroom where participants can walk, ride, and explore. The trail will serve as a haven for horseback rides and quiet reflection while also becoming a new setting for hands-on learning. Along these shaded paths, children and adults alike will practice decision-making, confidence building, problem-solving, and creativity, guided by the gentle harmony of nature.

Leading the charge is the farm’s newest team member, Jared Rigney, whose background in outdoor education and easy humor have already made him a favorite among the kids.

“He has got them laughing and working hard,” Freishtat said, smiling, adding that the crew members are not just building a trail; they are building pride.

At Fox Moon, the belief that nature is the greatest teacher runs deep. On any given day, the farm hums with quiet purpose. Horses nicker softly as volunteers muck. Children’s laughter carries on the breeze. Down by the lake, dragonflies skim the surface while attendees practice meditation on the dock. It is not unusual to see a parent sitting nearby with tears in their eyes, not from sadness, but from the simple joy of watching their child open up and bloom in the natural world.

Fox Moon Farm is not a grand facility with sprawling stables or high-priced treatments. It is something much rarer: a place where the boundaries between people and nature blur and where healing is found not in medicine but in moments of connection.

“Every person who comes here leaves a little piece of themselves behind and takes something of Fox Moon with them,” Freishtat said, reflecting on what the farm has become. In the evenings at Fox Moon Farm, as the wind stirs the tall grass and the farm settles in this quiet corner of Virginia, far from the noise of the world, hearts found their home. 

For more information on Fox Moon Farm, visit them on Facebook at facebook.com/foxmoonfarmproject or online at foxmoonfarm.org.

If you work with children or adolescents experiencing trauma, depression, behavioral challenges, special needs, or situations where traditional talk therapy has not reached them, consider the power of Equine Assisted Learning. At Fox Moon Farm, horses help students learn emotional awareness, self-regulation, anger management, boundary setting, and so much more – one steady heartbeat at a time.

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We shared how care farms are transforming what community care can look like and were joined by some of the leaders behind the movement.

Presenters Included:

Kate Mudge, Care Farming Network

Caroline Croft Estay & Johnny Fifles, Vertical Harvest Farms

Rachel Gillis, CapeAbilities

Watch the recording to hear more about how care farms work, what inspires care farmers, and what’s possible when farms are designed as deeply supportive, inclusive spaces.

The post Care Farming: Farming for Healing and Inclusive Community-Building Webinar appeared first on Care Farming Network.

Last September, a group of kids came with their families to the Red Wiggler farm in Clarksburg, MD. Since June and until the end of the growing season in November, they have been receiving food shares from the farm through a partnership with a local food bank as part of a farm-to-school program. This trip was a special treat for everyone in their family, from toddlers to grandparents, to see where their food comes from. As soon as they arrived, a worker welcomed them into the field. They explored together and picked their own cilantro and flowers to take home. Then they sat for hours having lunch together, trying different veggies grown on the farm.

For many of these kids and their families, this visit will be the start of a long-term relationship with the farm. That is intentional, says Kara McCall, the farm’s executive director. “Some will come back to volunteer throughout the year as part of their student service learning hours. Families will come back for different events and celebrations. But they all build a connection to this place because they see us as part of their community,” she says.

Red Wiggler is a care farm, a model that uses regular farming activities—like planting, harvesting, and looking after animals—to help people feel healthier, happier, and more connected.

The farm was started in 1996 by Woody Woodroof, a photographer who had worked in group homes for folks with developmental disabilities. There, he saw a need to create spaces where these folks could connect, get better food, and find meaningful jobs. He started by creating a few community gardens at group homes and a composting service. As the need grew, he started the farm to provide full-time employment with fair wages for these folks. Today, the farm employs 17 folks with developmental disabilities.

“Most people have someone in their lives that they know that if they are given the right opportunity, they would thrive,” McCall says. “In the farm, they see and build relationships with folks with disabilities that are in leadership roles, doing meaningful work growing food, and being an active part of the community, not hidden away.”

Red Wiggler is intentional in creating spaces for neighbors to connect with each other in the farm. Aside from their farm-to-school program, they also run other programs that distribute food to local food pantries and invite them to come to the farm to visit. They also run a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program that is farm pick-up only. “Many CSAs have shifted to a delivery or pick up at a farmers market model, but we stuck to asking folks to come to the farm because when people come every week, connect, and build relationships with one another and the staff, it builds community.”

McCall says that they have a very high retention rate on their CSA, with some folks having stayed for 29 years since the founding of the farm because they develop deep relationships with neighbors they wouldn’t otherwise have. “Last week, one of the CSA assistants was sick. One of our CSA customers came up and asked, ‘Where is Kim?’ She wanted to let her know that at the thrift store they have a huge selection of stuffed animals because she knows she loves them. I don’t think that these two folks would’ve known each other otherwise, but now they have a friendship,” says McCall.

McCall says that even the name of the farm, Red Wiggler, speaks to their ultimate goal of fostering connection and trust. “The Red Wiggler is a type of worm that is the unsung hero of composting,” she says. “They take all these components that are unseen and transform them into nutrients. They make the airways that make the compost thrive. And that is what we are doing here. We are constantly asking ourselves, what do we need to shift to make sure everyone who walks in here feels like they belong?”

You can learn more about Red Wiggler on their website. You can also hear from one of their growers here.

The post This farm cultivates community, relationships, and trust appeared first on Care Farming Network.

We’re thrilled to share that the Care Farming Network was recently featured on the ReImagination Café podcast in an episode that lifts up the growing movement of care farming across the country.

Hosted by Jessica Cherry, the episode brings together Kate Mudge, Co-Director of the Care Farming Network, and Woody Woodroof, founder of Red Wiggler Care Farm, for a conversation about how farms can promote health, well-being, and belonging—not just through what they grow, but through how they engage people.

From one Maryland farm to hundreds across the U.S., Kate and Woody share stories of how care farms heal, create purpose, and build community. They highlight the mutual benefits that flow to participants, staff, volunteers, and entire communities when farms are intentionally designed for inclusion and connection.

You’ll also hear from inspiring care farming leaders:

• Shawn Hayden (GAAMHA) on recovery programs that pair people in recovery with rescued farm animals.
• Lacey and Adam Ingrao (Bee Wise Farms) on mindfulness-infused beekeeping that supports veterans, invites honest dialogue, and nurtures resilience.
• Charley Schwartz (Red Wiggler) on creating farm-based spaces where people feel heard, seen, and that they belong.

Topics explored in this rich conversation include:

• What care farming is—and why it matters.
• The mutual benefits for participants, farmers, staff, volunteers, and communities.
• Red Wiggler’s model of meaningful employment for people with disabilities and community food access.
• How the Care Farming Network connects farms, shares resources, builds mentorship pathways, and strengthens this movement nationwide.
• Innovative care farm models serving people with disabilities, veterans, people in recovery, and other under-supported communities.

This episode beautifully captures the heart of care farming and the power of connection across our national network.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Spotify

The post Cultivating Change: The Transformative Power of Care Farming Podcast appeared first on Care Farming Network.

Eliada has deep agricultural roots, serving as a working farm since the early 1900’s. Today, Eliada’s Campus Farm program provides fresh organic produce, agricultural education opportunities, and community-based agritourism events to students at Eliada and the greater Asheville community. Our farm features several production spaces including a geodesic Grow Dome, Hoophouse, Corn Maze, and Learning Garden. With these garden spaces, we are equipped to grow food year-round. A majority of the produce grown on campus goes directly to our central kitchen, traveling only a hundred yards, and is prepared for student meals weekly. Excess produce is sold to local community partners who support food justice work in our community.

Agricultural education classes are taught by our Farm Director weekly at our garden sites to students ages 11-17 at Eliada Academy. Class sessions address various agricultural topics including gardening, conservation, farm ecology, irrigation, and pest control, and are part of the science curriculum. Students utilize our growing spaces and gardens to learn about regenerative farming practices and get hands-on experience working the land.

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By Kerry Halladay

A growing program in New Mexico is helping connect adults with disabilities to farming.

On July 16, the USDA-funded AgrAbility program hosted the first of its National Training Workshop Encore Webinars for 2025. The event featured Sophie Trusty, program director at Mandy’s Farm. She spoke about the farm’s Adaptive Apprenticeship Program, which helps adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities learn farming skills and find agricultural job placement within the community in the Albuquerque area.

“AgrAbility is a USDA-sponsored program that assists farmers and ranchers and other agricultural workers with disabilities,” says Tess McKeel of Goodwill of the Finger Lake Team, an AgrAbility partner, who emceed the webinar. She explains that the national program partners with land grand universities that offer disability services organizations and that there are currently 21 state projects.

Mandy’s Farm is one of those state projects.

“Mandy’s Farm is the nonprofit partner in the New Mexico AgrAbility project,” Trusty says. She explained that the farm started in 2000 as a way to provide supportive residential living services initially to women with autism, but has since expanded to serve other people within the community.

“We had had this agricultural site for many years and started hearing more and more community need and interest and interest around agricultural programs and how that intersects for folks with disabilities towards employments,” Trusty continues. “That led us to being approached to be the nonprofit partner in the New Mexico AgrAbility project.”

About the Adaptive Apprenticeship Program

The Adaptive Apprenticeship Program started its first full-time apprenticeship cohort in February of 2023 with nine participants. It is a two-year program consisting of 1,800 hours of classroom instruction and field work. The program is facilitated by a pair of program managers who oversee daily operations and the curriculum, as well as program assistants who work directly with the apprentices.

Occupational therapy students from the University of New Mexico also partner with Mandy’s Farm, providing additional support to apprentices.

“The occupational therapy field work students completing their practicum have the option to choose Mandy’s Farm’s AgrAbility Apprenticeship program as their field work placement, so we are often very lucky to have those OT students working with us for part of the program,” Trusty says.

She explains that the first year of the program generally covers ag basics and classroom time, while the second year focuses on apprentices working off-site at nearby community farms and planning and working on their personal plots at Mandy’s Farm.

Trusty reports the current crops at the farm include beans, cabbage, collard greens, corn, herbs, melons, okra, peppers, squash, sweetpotatoes and tomatoes, with the tomatoes and peppers being particular favorites last year. In addition to their personal plots, the apprentices have a lot of input in what gets grown at Mandy’s Farm. She says this year the farm has a few experimental rows of garbanzo beans and quinoa, for instance.

“We like the apprentices to have a lot of input on what will be grown because that’s way more fun and they are able to get a wide variety of knowledge on different crops,” Trusty says. “A lot of the small farms in Albuquerque are very diversified, mixed vegetable production. So, hopefully that gives them some experience that would be helpful at other farms.”

Apprentices receive a $600 monthly stipend funded through the state’s division of vocational rehabilitation for all of their work during their apprenticeship. This is a very important detail, Trusty says.

“We have a strong value at Mandy’s Farm around paid work for folks with disabilities and intellectual disabilities, and we focus on transitioning our students out of the program and into community integrated employment,” she says.

That focus shows up in the final months of the apprenticeship, Trusty adds.

“For the last several months of the program before they graduate, [apprentices] receive intensive job development support,” she says. “That is a classification of supported employment where we support them with getting placed in a community employment setting at the end of their apprenticeship.”

Past apprentices and the current cohort

Seven members of the first cohort of apprentices graduated the program in December of 2024. Trusty says several of that cohort are in agricultural or ag-adjacent jobs.

“We have someone working at a greenhouse, we have someone working doing landscaping for a local hotel, and we have two folks at a compost facility,” Trusty says. She adds that Alejandro, who works as the hotel landscaper, “has just been loving his job.”

“He’s been so successful,” she says. “It’s just been really incredible to see our graduates in their new jobs and how happy and successful they are.”

There are six apprentices in the current cohort that started earlier this year. Trusty reports that, while the current cohort is still new and trying to figure out their unique interests, there is a developing trend so far: Cooking and value-added foods.

“For example, I know today they are making garlic scape pesto and we’re going to package it and sell it at the farmers market this Saturday,” she said during the July 16 webinar. “We also just harvested a bunch of apples and are creating apple butter tomorrow and dehydrated apple slices.”

Trusty says the program tries to lean into the different cohort interests and pursue connections in the community that can support learning. She says they are looking into collaboration with a local program called the Three Sisters Kitchen that does a food business training program.

“We’re in early conversations about whether some of our folks might want to do some of their time next year at the food training program and trying to align their own personal plots at the farm, growing some things for product and selling those and helping them get a business started,” Trusty says.

The challenges of now and hopes for the future

Trusty also talked about the various challenges at Mandy’s Farm. Most of these — funding, good relations with neighbors and the county, soil quality problems — are common to any farming operation. But a unique challenge is the continuing stigma around disabled people broadly, and those with intellectual and developmental disabilities specifically.

“There’s a lot of stigma about farming as a career too, and sometimes when those things converge, there’s even more misconceptions,” she explains. “Sometimes we hear ‘can they do that work? Are they able to be farmers?’ or ‘is that appropriate?’ and that kind of thing. I hope that our apprentices are helping to change that narrative. Yes, they can, and they are wonderful farmers. Anyone would be lucky to have them.”

She adds that she hopes those in the wider agricultural community are open minded and will be willing to listen to people with disabilities.

“If someone is saying ‘this is what I want to do, this is what I’m interested in,’ believe that,” she says, urging people not to have preconceived notions on what someone is able to do. “Creating that next generation of farmers is so critical, so being creative about how we do that and providing some more supports to folks who are interested in that is really important.”

When it comes to the future, Trusty says the goals for the AgrAbility Apprenticeship Program are to be able to increase community involvement and interactions. Mandy’s Farm envision doing so through offering community workshops on agricultural practices, hosting school groups for educational visits and other offerings such as free community farm dinners.

Through these efforts, Mandy’s Farm hopes to increase social capital and feelings of connection and inclusion for their program participants. This will also give more opportunities for the apprentices to “showcase their knowledge and skills which decreases stigma and myths about individuals with disabilities,” Trusty says.

“I just wanted to emphasize how incredible and capable our apprentices are and what a meaningful experience it has been to be part of their growth,” she says. “Our apprentices graduate with agricultural skills, but they also grow in confidence, develop their ability to advocate for their needs, learn how to work on a team and resolve conflict, and develop lasting connections.”

The post Ag Apprentice Program Helps Disabled Adults Grow appeared first on Care Farming Network.

By Joanna Frketich

I accidentally became the first client of Thistle House Care Farm.

As The Spectator’s health reporter, I was in Brant County on June 16 — a beautiful blue-sky sunny day — to tour the Mount Pleasant farm that will soon provide therapeutic programs, mostly for mental health and dementia.

Despite more than 25 years on the beat, I’d never been to a care farm. While they are common in the United Kingdom and the United States, there are only nine registered in Canada — four of them in Ontario. The nation’s first was Green Care Farms in Milton.

There is so much demand for farm therapy that Thistle House is opening about a year earlier than planned — the goal is to start taking paying clients over the summer. 

Requests started as soon as Keri McCallum and Ken Humphrey made it public that they intended to turn the farm owned by the Campbell family for 165 years into a place of healing and well-being for the public when they took over ownership in October.

The couple have other full-time jobs, so hiring health-care workers to run a variety of therapeutic programs and looking for sponsors to help bring the price from $120 a session to their goal of $40 is a labour of love for their rural community.

“This was a passion project for us,” said McCallum. “We wanted to see if we could give back in some way.”

I was standing among the purple thistles the farm is named for, gazing at a bird flitting in and out of the feeder, when I got the call from my mother. I was in the middle of the farm tour, so I let it go to voice mail, feeling uneasy because she never calls in the middle of a work day.Following the farm’s meandering path, McCallum pointed out the specked eggs of a killdeer that was doing its best to distract me from the nest by faking a wing injury in a spectacular display, when my phone screen lit up with a message from my brother.

“Call mom,” it read.

I had made it to the newly built chicken coop where Freckles — a spotted seven-week-old chick — was lightly pecking at my toes when my brother sent me another message to say the call couldn’t wait until I was done at the farm.

I watched a monarch butterfly flutter around raised garden beds planted during a recent community open house as I got the news that my grandfather had died.

He was 96 years old, lived a full and happy life, and died in his sleep.

But I still felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. My grandfather was one of the most influential people in my life. I named my oldest son after him. For as long as I can remember, he has been my safe harbour.

Grief recovery is one of the potential reasons for visiting the farm, and while I didn’t do the usual therapeutic activities of planting, weeding, crafting, harvesting or feeding the chickens, just being there helped calm the brewing storm.

The idea behind care farms is that spending time in nature and doing agricultural activities reduces stress, anxiety and depression while giving a sense of purpose and accomplishment. It provides social interaction and boosts self-esteem.

“You just feel better being outside and doing this sort of thing,” McCallum said. “I’ve already had so much interest.”

Thistle House is still a work in progress, with hopes of a frog pond, gazebo, more animals and different types of gardens and greenhouses as it opens in stages. Staff need to be hired and more sponsors found.The fine details of programs are being worked out and different offerings like team building are under consideration. Future clients are being consulted, other care farm operators are providing expertise, the farm has a survey on its website and more information is available at thistlehousefarm.ca.But the healing power of nature is already there in full force. Looking out over the seemingly endless fields that surround Thistle House at 4 Campbell Dr., I thought of how much my grandfather would have loved it there.

We would have taken the farm’s scenic route to the future pollinator garden and sat in the shade in comfortable silence, watching the bees go about their work. As I regretfully left Thistle House on that day I will never forget, I was grateful that when I first faced a world without my grandfather in it, I was met with the solace of the care farm.

The post While touring a therapy farm, I got a call that left me reeling appeared first on Care Farming Network.

Our PURPOSE is to nurture the holistic well-being of grieving humans and hurting animals by providing them access to restorative environments and activities. At our carefarm, we foster relationships of support to reduce isolation and provide a source of compassion and companionship.

Our VISION is that all animals and humans living with the effects of bereavement and suffering have a haven in which to breathe, mourn, and receive nourishment in unhurried, gentle ways through connection with the land, self, and others.

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Care farms provide growth and recovery through the power of nature.

By Olivia Montes

 

 

Off a busy Delaware highway, down a gravel road, and just beyond a blooming green meadow stands a barn.

If you peek inside, you might see a cat or two curled up in a sun-filled spot or a row of ducks quacking on their morning stroll. Or, if you’re lucky, you can hear a rooster greeting the day with a full, mighty crow.

However, if you look a little closer, this barn is more than that. To many, it is a refuge where people of all ages and backgrounds come together, roll up their sleeves, and immerse themselves in the natural world.

For many more, it’s where they can offer compassion and care to themselves and each other. It’s the kind of journey Grateful Acres founder and CEO Ally Kennedy understands all too well.

After losing her parents, grandmother, and uncle within roughly a year and facing this grief amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Kennedy was struggling to heal. One morning, inside that same Middletown barn, she found an answer through one of her closest companions: her horse of 23 years, Miss Coolie.

“I just noticed that our breath started to sync, and I was just feeling a lot calmer,” she says. “I just sat there with her…had a good cry, and I knew in my heart that that second just changed me.”

Through Miss Coolie, and the spirit of her family, Kennedy “got [her] clarity back,” and brought Grateful Acres to life in June 2021.

Alongside a team of volunteers and several four- and two-legged friends, Kennedy has a vision to build a supportive space that incorporates the natural environment to promote community and self-care. In other words, it’s a care farm.

According to the Care Farm Network (CFN), care farming is defined as “the therapeutic use of farming practices” to promote healing. An extension of green care, care farms operate under supervised, structured programming, providing agricultural activities and services for individuals “with a defined need,” according to the United Kingdom–based charity Social Farms & Gardens. This includes rehabilitation and special education, as well as improving emotional, mental, and social health.

While care farms provide an individual-first approach to healing, they differ by the populations they serve. Several furnish services to clients with mental or physical health challenges, alcohol or substance use disorders, and intellectual or developmental disabilities.

“Ultimately, [care farming] is about participation and a sense of belonging,” says CFN outreach and communications consultant Kate Mudge. “[It is] allowing people to get their hands dirty and find value in just interacting with nature.”

With roots in many countries—the United Kingdom boasts nearly 400 facilities alone—care farming is still relatively new in the United States. According to CFN, as of 2024, there were 283 care farms registered in the U.S.—four of which, including Grateful Acres, are in Delaware.

A Bright Spot

A program under the auspices of West End Neighborhood House, spanning 3 acres close to Route 13, Bright Spot Urban Farm in New Castle knows about growth. According to program director Ruth Arias, Bright Spot was conceived nearly a decade ago to help young adults transitioning out of foster care learn about cultivating food and other products in urban areas.

Upon expanding and moving to the Delaware Health and Social Services’ Herman M. Holloway Sr. Campus, Arias says, the program shifted its focus to high school students, specifically those from low-income and at-risk neighborhoods across New Castle County.

“In their neighborhoods, some of them don’t have yards or trees, so this is a therapeutic space for them,” Arias says.

For 12 weeks during the summer, participants learn a wide range of agricultural skills, including landscaping, caring for plants in the greenhouse, and even customer service.

As many kids move forward, Arias and her team are impressed with how the children build a familial space and make changes of their own in a little over a year.

“Our whole purpose is not just to create farms but to have leaders out there in the world or in their community making a difference,” says Arias.

Taking R.O.O.T.S.

For Talon and Travis Holleman, the commitment to reconnection runs deep. After leaving their careers in nursing and business, respectively, the pair moved with their two children from their hometown of Baltimore to southern Delaware in 2017. Their intention was to spend more time together and “to go back to the basics” and find altruistic ways of learning.

Homeschooling their kids, Bella and Emmett, and moving to their 3-acre family homestead in Georgetown gave them an idea.

“The more we got into [homeschooling, the more] we wanted to build this structure of activities that you wouldn’t typically get in schools,” Travis explains.

After launching an after-school program in 2021 and hearing from community members who wanted to participate, Travis and Talon got the idea for the Reaching Outside of Traditional Schooling Youth + Development Program—also known as R.O.O.T.S.

“We just opened up the entire property to an educational playground,” Talon says.

R.O.O.T.S. allows children, teens, and young adults to get out of the classroom and into the natural world while building community through self-sufficiency and goodwill. This includes workshops on the homestead and activities such as job readiness, mentoring, and yoga.

Building on the pillars of regenerative farming, nature studies, bushcraft, animal husbandry, and homesteading, the Hollemans center programming on helping others form healthy, foundational social skills and how to use these same teachings to build connections with one another.

“With care farming, it just comes back to, we don’t have to do this alone,” Talon says. “We can come together as a team.”

A Lasting Impact

Domenica Personti says she sees The Sanctuary at Impact Life Farm as “a care farm with recovery roots.”

After working 26 years in the behavioral health field and being in recovery herself, Personti sought new ways to help those seeking treatment for substance or alcohol use disorder achieve long-term rehabilitation. She found inspiration from her own childhood, spending time on her grandparents’ farm in Galena, Maryland.

“My grandmother…always believed that we should have a connection to nature,” explains Personti, the founder and CEO of Impact Life. “And I think that just kind of planted this foundation for me.”

Fulfilling a decade-long dream, Personti created a similar space in 2020 for women in recovery—one that gives them the support to achieve long-lasting healing.

Across approximately 17 acres in Seaford, 10 women in recovery call Impact Life home, living in a five-bedroom house overlooking open land and a silo and barn with pigs, goats, chickens, cows, and alpacas.

Throughout their time, clients learn how to contribute to the farm and homestead. They also work alongside licensed behavioral and mental health clinicians in one-on-one, group, and family sessions, and take part in mindfulness activities and free time.

Through combining agriculture with the 12 steps of addiction recovery, and creating a safe and relatable environment, Impact Life establishes a plan for restoration, sobriety, and resilience.

Sarah Burke, who has been living at Impact Life since November 2023, was initially drawn to the long-term investment in and support for clients—and the barn full of animals—seeking a change from the 28-day treatment programs she previously attended.

At the farm, Burke took part in nature walks, bonding with new furry friends, playing games like Recovery Jeopardy.

It was through connecting with peers and specialists that she gained hope and security.

“We are all fighting a similar battle, so we all can lift each other up,” she says. “Our situations are different, but the pain is the same, and the power that comes from that [lets us] know we’re going to be OK.” “My story is not harder than anybody else’s story. Some people have had it worse; some people haven’t had it,” she continues. “But my story is my story, and I’m working through that for me.”

Giving and Getting Back

For volunteers at Grateful Acres, being a part of the community behind the care farm is its own reward.

After starting to homeschool her son, Reese, in February 2023, Heather Wharton began searching for volunteer opportunities and found the chance to “get [their] hands dirty and learn some hard work” at Grateful Acres.

With each weekly visit there, Heather has seen Reese become “more comfortable and social” and willing to handle new challenges. “When we first got here, [Kennedy] had small chickens she was about to raise, and he was just nervous around them,” Wharton explains. “And now, if they’re out, he runs, chases them down, and rounds them up.”

Kelly Dakin, along with her sons Liam and Ryan, says working on a care farm has benefited their own well-being.

“As a person who has anxiety, one of the things that I find is sometimes you feel alone in how you’re feeling, and how your worries get you into this negative mindset,” Dakin says. “And being here, and having those feel-good [moments] of helping out, and the community and the animals to love on…it really has been helpful.”

For the last three years, Kennedy has seen how much Grateful Acres and care farms have thrived, and how they have encouraged others to change their own lives.

“I’m always preaching, if you’re afraid to do something, just take the first step,” she explains. “[And] if you have to take two steps backward, that’s OK.”

But while running a care farm isn’t always easy, her team, community, and animals remind her of the mission: to help bring others love, joy, and comfort when they need it most.

And that, Kennedy says, is something for which to be grateful. “I feel now, in my heart, I know that there was a need for this,” she says. “And I don’t question myself anymore.”

The post Care Farms Cultivate Healing Across Delaware appeared first on Care Farming Network.

Photojournalist Nathan Sharkey takes us to Old School Farms! The non-profit uses therapeutic farming practices and employs adults with developmental disabilities, known as “mission farmers,” who grow, harvest & deliver produce to food insecure communities in Nashville.

The farm provides a supportive work environment where everyone feels comfortable and can learn about organic, regenerative agriculture.

Watch the clip here!

The post Old School Farms is harvesting hope with therapeutic farming! appeared first on Care Farming Network.