Program areas at Veterans Healing Farm
Agritherapy: Our new Tomato Team grew 115 different varieties of tomatoes with a public tasting, Tomatopalooza WNC, at The Buzz in downtown Hendersonville. (The Buzz is a new mocktail / coffee shop owned by the Hope Coalition which focuses on addiction recovery, including Veterans). We grew/distributed over 5,000 lbs. of produce to Veterans and caregivers at the Charles George VA Medical Center, Safelight Womens Shelter, IAM Food Pantry, the Rescue Mission of Hendersonville, the Storehouse, and the Veterans Restoration Quarters (180 bed, male, Veteran homeless shelter in Asheville). The Bee Squad took wonderful care of our ladies and harvested 8 gallons of honey. Our Medicinal Herb Squad grew and processed 68 different medicinal plants with the teas, tinctures, salves and balms given to our Veteran community for sleep issues, anxiety, and inflammation.
Events: Our 2nd Annual Veterans Resource Fair saw participation double over the previous year to over 700 in attendance for this Veteran event. Thirty-five organizations that provide services to Veterans participated. We also hosted the Traveling Vietnam Memorial Wall, and 9/11 Memorials over Veterans Day weekend. The memorials, along with other Veteran programming such as Brothers and Sisters Like These stage readings, Quilts of Valors, Bullets and Bandaids art exhibits were open 24 hours a day for the four days they were at the Veterans Healing Farm. The Farm had 3,856 visitors attend to honor those who gave all for our freedoms.
Workshops: This year we ran 49 workshops for over 500 participants with a 92% approval rating. These included equine therapy, canine therapy, art therapy, music therapy, neurofeedback therapy, vegetable canning, floral arrangements, art classes, jam making, mushroom growing, medicinal herbs, etc., as well as our second season of offering suicide prevention classes to the entire community. To date we have trained 68 individuals in suicide prevention.