human beings : bringing produce from the earth . At Red Wiggler there is also a veritable parade of visitors — community groups and students of all ages — who come there explicitly to learn something . Darlene co-leads tours with a few growers . “ They are farmers . They know the farm really well . They know how we grow . And so for them to be able to lead the tours , to teach volunteers , and to teach interns builds confidence and a sense of pride in what they do and how meaningful their work is to the community .” In that way , the growers turn out to be as much teachers as anyone else at Red Wiggler .
So people come to Red Wiggler to learn something from this place that they likely would have a difficult time learning elsewhere . They learn about a farm from someone with development and intellectual disabilities who has , themselves , learned the love and labor of farming . That is the spirit of Red Wiggler : open and generous learning .
Woody says , “ Learning that ’ s top-down is a kind of learning that I never responded to .” Learning between equals — that is the kind , you get the sense , they are here to facilitate . Between growers and staff , between Care Farms , even between a long-time members and a story-writer who has just shown up for a day — there is an expectation that every party is in a position to learn something .”
For those who do not do the work of harvesting , who might be able to see a park from the office
Woody Woodroof , Red Wiggler ’ s founder and executive director .
window , who face daily standards of efficiency — what do these farms have to teach ? Maybe there is a lesson here in more inclusive work environments , like creating places of diversity that do not neglect neurodiversity ? Maybe there is a wider imagination for meaningful relationships with people not like us ? Maybe there is a reminder in recognizing that so much of our work is not under our control , a lesson in patience ? Or maybe the lesson is just , you need to get yourself to a farm .
The Farm That still cares
Over the course of the pandemic , the folks at Red Wiggler have learned to keep the caring up when the world needed even more care . For sure , they took care of their own , and the operations of the farm looked very different with fewer visitors on the property and masks in the field . But the people of Red Wiggler kept their gaze beyond their small plot of land . In 2020 , Red Wiggler changed the way it distributed food . Where they used to sell 70 percent of their produce with 30 percent going to local food banks , they switched it to 50 / 50 increasing by 20 percent what was sent the Neighbors in Need program .
Since 1996 Red Wiggler has brought good things out of the ground and employed routinely overlooked folks . It has offered education to young and old and widened the fellowship of care farms in their new network . And it has no intention of slowing down any time soon .
When I ask Katie Leary Sebastian , the chair of the board , what the soul of Red Wiggler is , she says , “ I could go to the farm and it didn ’ t matter if I had a master ’ s degree . It didn ’ t matter if I had been working internationally for 20 years in agriculture . That grower who knows this field was telling me exactly how to do something . And we were all on an even ground with the level of respect for that . So that to me is the soul of Red Wiggler .”
This farm has created a remarkable spirit , a community of attentive care . That is something you can never buy at market . It is , like those little worms , easy to overlook even though it is wriggling with life .
Red Wiggler operates the longest continuously running CSA in Montgomery County and the second longest running in Maryland . www . redwiggler . org . Peter Hartwig originally wrote this article for BitterSweet Monthly . It has been adapted and reprinted with their permission . bittersweetmonthly . com
24 plenty I autumn harvest 2022