Small Farm Wellness Handbook for Community Organizations

Commodities

Practices

Over the past 3 years, I have coordinated classes and workshops at the garden with the goal of improving the physical and mental health of the community.  I have struggled to find a curriculum that includes programming on gardening, mental health, and physical health. 

Through my work in Social Services, I know firsthand how important it is to include all three of these lesson categories to see behavior change in a participant.  Currently, a guide does not exist that provides a roadmap for community organizations and small farms to incorporate mental and physical wellbeing in their garden programming. 

A need exists for a handbook that would serve this goal and provide a guide to other community organizations in our position.  I have worked over the past 3 years to create a systemized program to provide community education at my small farm and I have determined that this project requires a dedicated and coordinated effort to accomplish it successfully. 

We plan to host a series of classes and workshops on topics that address improving the physical health, mental health, nutritional knowledge, and sustainable farming skills of the participants. Through surveys conducted at each workshop, we will determine which programs were best received by the participants. Following the conclusion of the series of programming, we will create a guidebook that includes each of the classes that we conducted with instructions for other community organizations to utilize. Going forward, we will be able to use this guidebook of workshops to conduct our programming, and other community organizations will be able to have the resources they need as well.

First, we will ensure that we create a safe and accessible space for all participants to feel comfortable. Ensuring their growth and ability to fully participate and receive the information.
The programming that we will test to potentially be included in our guidebook will include:
1. Sustainable Farming
a. Soil testing and soil health
b. No till gardening
c. Crop rotations
d. Companion planting
e. Tool ergonomics
f. Seed starting
g. Drip irrigation
h. Low tunnel construction and season extension
i. Mushroom cultivation
2. Physical Health
a. Physical farm work as physical activity
i. Including using tools and equipment safely to avoid injury
b. Walking group
c. Yoga and aerobics at the farm
3. Mental Health
a. 6 Dimensions of Wellness series
b. Community gatherings
c. Monthly discussion and awareness topics
4. Nutritional Knowledge
a. Canning and food preservation
b. USDA MyPlate classes
c. Cooking classes to use harvested vegetables in their kitchens

Each of our classes and workshops will be hands-on and group centered. Programming will be held in the garden space whenever weather allows, to utilize the mental health benefits that the space offers.

Teaching methods:
1. Sustainable Farming programming will be taught by –
a. Professional educators from Lincoln University Cooperative Extension
i. Collaborating with extension professionals ensures research based methods and up to date practices
b. Regional small farmers currently utilizing regenerative and sustainable practices
i. Allows farmers to learn from each other and increase the support community for new and beginner farmers participating in the programming
c. US Forest Services
2. Physical Health programming will be conducted by -
a. Instructor from local yoga studio
b. Missouri AgrAbility will conduct hands-on safety training
c. Kristine Moore using instructional video provided by the University of Missouri Extension during the winter months
3. Mental Health programming will be conducted by -
a. Kristine Moore using resources from the National Alliance on Mental Illness and the National Wellness Institute
4. Nutritional programming will be conducted by -
a. Professional educators from Lincoln University Cooperative Extension and the University of Missouri Extension
b. Certified dietitian with the Jefferson County Health Department

We will conduct evaluation surveys of all participants at each program as well as periodic interviews.

Objectives:

• Host series of hands-on classes and workshops
• Survey participants to determine what activities will be included in the guidebook
• Identify the crops that compliment the selected activities
• Create a guidebook of best practices that we will use in future years for continued programming at the farm
• Publish and share the guidebook with the community and other community organizations to use
• Host a community gathering and farm walkabout to share the project results with the community and participants