Enrique Blanco, Jr., Charley Schwartz, and Becca Roe show off Red Wiggler’ s garlic harvest. Garlic’ s large cloves make it very accessible to plant.
Brandon, a grower on the farm, who grins from beneath his wool hat, thick gloves tucked into one pocket.
While anyone can volunteer at Red Wiggler Care Farm,“ everyone that works here— there’ s 16 folks that work part-time as growers— have intellectual and developmental disabilities,” says Woody as he gives me a tour of the farm.“ It has tons of opportunities for people with disabilities and without to interact in ways that suit their capabilities and interests.”
The idea for Red Wiggler sprouted 30 years ago, from— of all places— the concrete-like soil of Tucson, Arizona. Woody had been working in a group home for people with developmental disabilities. And while this was supposed to be a side gig while Woody pursued photography, what he saw made him wonder: could we do care better for people with disabilities? In the mid-90s, care and resources for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities( or IDD) were underdeveloped.“ What I had noticed was the people I was working with needed jobs. A meaningful job, hopefully. As well as perhaps they could be eating a little more healthy,” Woody explains.“ They were eating a lot of boxed and canned foods. And so I came up with this idea to create community gardens in Tucson.”
However, finding the right land in Tucson proved challenging, and so through Woody’ s passion and a chance encounter with friends who operated a Marylandbased CSA, Red Wiggler launched in 1996 in Montgomery County, Maryland. Woody formed partnerships with local leaders, eventually leasing land from Maryland- National Capital Park and Planning Commission. Over time Red Wiggler grew from a 12-member CSA employing five adults with disabilities, to a 100-member CSA able to employ 20.
Care farming uses therapeutic farming to promote health, wellbeing, and belonging. Woody, who had just wanted to grow good food and create meaningful jobs, had created a thriving care farm, without ever hearing the term.
Today the farm runs an extensive volunteer program that invites the community to work alongside its employees to grow organic vegetables, more than half of which are donated to alleviate local food insecurity and to farm-to-school nutrition programs. The rest of the produce is sold through a CSA to help fund the farm. The farm also operates an on-farm educational program open to area schools and educators.
Brandon found the program through his high school. When I ask him what his first impression of the farm was, he laughs“ I didn’ t know what I was getting into.”
Brandon, ten years in and a paid employee, takes pride in his work, and has been eager to grow and evolve his role at Red Wiggler.
Brandon Vreeland, Grower and Equipment Assistant, started coming to the farm as a student and was hired in 2016.
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