We, Maya Wechsler & Greg Masucci, are parents of two
small children (one of whom has non-verbal autism) with a dream. We know that
one day, the bus will stop coming for our son. One day he, and other young
adults with developmental disabilities, will face an extremely high
unemployment rate and a dearth of interesting daytime activities to keep him
occupied. We worry about how he wil spend his dys as anautistic
adut—whether he will be doing something meaningful, in a safe place, with
people who understand and care about him. So, instead of waiting for a solution
to this problem to magically happen one day, we are going to make it happen
today.
We are building a farm and a community where adults with
special needs will learn real job skills, set and achieve goals, and perform
work that results in a very tangible, useful outcome: organic produce.
Moreover, our growers will find a welcoming community on our farm – A Farm Less
Ordinary.
Dreams without actions remain just that: dreams. We have
taken the first steps to make our dream a reality. We bought 24 acres in rural
Virginia, 65 miles west of our former lives in Washington, DC. We spent our
first year figuring out how to grow organic vegetables. We took classes, read
books, and asked everyone we could find for advice. We paid for the seeds,
mulch, irrigation equipment, tools, deer fencing, tractor retals, as wel as
numerous truckloads of gravel, organic compost, and lime, out of our own
pockets, more or less doing everything by hand. It was a successful first year,
and we gave away lots of beautiful vegetables. Now that we know what’s
possible, we’re scaling up! We are doubling the size of our tilled fields and
plantings this season. We are hiring our first growers this year - young adults
with developmental disabilities.
We have launched a small-scale, fee-based, Community
Supported Agriculture (CSA) membership, delivering our organic produce to
families in the DC area. We have assembled a talented Board of Directors with
multiple areas of expertise to help guide our mission. We are proceeding
thoughtfully to create a lasting organization for a population of adults who
need only encouragement and a few simple accommodations in order tofind fair
and meaningful employment. However, as our fields, staff, and distribution
grow, our financial and material needs grow as well.
Without external funding sources, we will not be able to
take this farm to the next level and truly make a difference in the lives of
families and individuals with developmental disabilities. We recently received
our official non-profit 501(c)3 status (making all dontions to ourorganization tax deductible). Please help us realize the dream by making a
contribution to A Farm Less Ordinary. Help us build a better life for those
with developmental disabilities and a better world for all of us.
Supporters
So happy to support this amazing cause!
Love everything about this and happy to contribute :)
Great idea, hope you guys are doing well.