July has been a month of variety in terms of the groups visiting the farm. The month kicked off with a lovely visit from St Paul’s Way Trust. It was a brilliant week and the young people enjoyed getting stuck in with all sorts of activities, including painting, log-chopping and farming. A big thank you to visiting staff John and Lisa for getting the group selection spot on, we look forward to continuing these visits in the future!
It was a pleasure to be joined by Greenwich Virtual School who massively contributed to our work at the farm in the week they were here. As well as our visitors helping to build our dairy or out on the farm with Charlotte, we were really impressed by the level of support and reflective conversations that we witnessed throughout the week.
Our long-standing partners at Heathside visited with 12 young people, and we were lucky enough to share the experience of watching Penny, our Jersey cow, give birth. This was an amazing experience for all involved, and definitely a highlight for our visitors! Thank you to all staff and young people for getting stuck in with such a variety of jobs.
Finally, The Hummingbird Project joined us with a group of ten young women. This was a memorable week for several reasons. It was an absolute pleasure to watch how supportive and hard-working the group was, and to see their confidence and friendships blossom over the course of the week.
The biggest farm news this month in Lewes has been the arrival of our dairy calf. A lot of hard work from Charlotte means we are now at the exciting point of being able to enjoy a daily milking round with all of the young people visiting! We’ve adopted two young calves who are enjoying the milk until we get our dairy up and running, with the help of visiting young people. We’ve also harvested our first honey of the year from our bee hives, a massive thanks to our volunteer Ahmed, and Jess, for all their hard work to make this happen.
We’d love to take the chance to celebrate the latest addition to our team, Lenny the Jersey calf. A big thank you to Charlotte for her focus on farm-to-food connection and her vision and drive to keep that at the forefront of our work supporting and empowering young people.
