Looking for a small farm with a house that has many bedrooms for foster children – the more rooms, the better. The farm will be used for regenerative agriculture, with all farm work done by paid workers, occasionally augmented by agricultural interns.
The house is to be used to provide a home for children in foster care and children awaiting adoption. The children will have no chores or responsibilities related to the operation of the farm, though it will provide them with healthy fresh food and a safe environment while they are in one of the most difficult situations in which children can find themselves. It is also designed to give them a longer-term placement so that they are not rotated through the system constantly, with the possibility that older, harder-to-place children may be adopted by the family
The project is to be operated by a retiring music teacher who has worked with children for decades and who has raised a family of five kids, with a godson also living with them – so he knows what it is like to have six kids under the age of seventeen in the house at one time. And he himself spent a large part of his childhood growing up on a farm before he ended up as a teen in the system of moving from household to household.
Small New England family farms actually do very well economically, especially in Massachusetts. The farm will provide a good, stable income, supporting itself and allowing the adults to remain on site with the children. Ultimately, the farm will go into a trust where it will remain a farm that is focused on this work and be taken over by the next generation.
More info about the project can be found by searching fosterhomefarm. If you have an old farm or large house, or just want to contribute to something philanthropic, consider this project.