The Shadow
WEST AUGUSTA, Va. (VR) —Across Virginia, some farms are producing more than crops and livestock. They’re cultivating confidence, nourishing independence, and building skills that help individuals thrive—all through everyday farm chores.
Care farming integrates agriculture with therapeutic and developmental practices. By using agriculture as a tool, these farms provide support, foster connections, and create opportunities for personal growth while delivering physical, mental and social benefits.
In rural Augusta County, a Christmas tree farm offers young men a space to grow through meaningful work. Since Joanne Tannehill left her 80-acre property to the Boys Home of Virginia in 1994, the farm has provided students with hands-on learning experiences.
Each year, small crews spend weekends tending thousands of fir trees, maintaining the land and building lifelong skills. Work begins in spring, when students map rows and calculate how many trees to plant.
“The kids help lay out the grid, and we quiz them on the math,” explained farm manager Rick Hutson.
Throughout the seasons, they relocate transplants, shear trees, groom fields and clear brush. Along the way, they earn hourly wages, stay active, forge friendships, and develop teamwork, responsibility and confidence.
Their efforts culminate each fall when the farm opens to the public after Thanksgiving. Students help customers select and cut trees they’ve nurtured, prepare wholesale orders, and sell wreaths and ornaments.
Surrounded by scenic forestland, walking trails, ponds and open spaces, the farm also offers moments of peace for young men who have faced adversities in their lives.
“The woods can be a very cleansing and therapeutic place,” Hutson said. “And it’s good for them to get out where it’s not as structured.”
In Albemarle County, Innisfree Village has fostered an empowering community life with individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities since 1971. Here, residents—called coworkers—live alongside volunteers, help sustain the 550-acre community, and build lasting relationships and skills through purposeful work.
“We’re not just an organization focused on care delivery, but rather on everyone being participatory,” said Innisfree’s executive director, Rorie Hutter.
That participation includes work on the farm, where coworkers care for chickens, cows, sheep, pigs and turkeys—collecting eggs, rotating cows among pastures, repairing fences, feeding, putting out hay and cleaning up fallen trees.
“We have our basic chore checklist, just like every farm,” explained farm manager and longtime volunteer Tim Wool.
Meals made from fresh eggs and pasture-raised meat paired with fruits, vegetables and herbs from the community’s garden demonstrate the value of everyone’s contributions.
“It’s realizing, ‘I just harvested tomatoes yesterday and now we’re enjoying those incredible tomatoes,’” Hutter said. “That direct correlation is really important for our folks.”
Tasks are less automated and broken down so “individuals with differing abilities can fully participate,” Wool said. Activities are selected by interest and ability, with the well-being of people and animals, and land always at the forefront.
“There are opportunities here that people probably haven’t been exposed to,” Hutter added. “By setting up a supportive environment, there’s a much more enriched menu of choices.”
Read more and see photos in Winter Cultivate magazine.
