Many thanks to the Wyck staff members who contributed to this post:
Reeve Basom, Outdoor Educator
Landon Jefferies, Home Farm Manager
Nicole Juday, Horticulturist
Eileen Rojas, Executive Director
LK: What were the factors that led to the development of this new programming?
In 2006, we undertook a strategic planning process that outlined some new program directions more focused on our community, but drawing on historical themes of education and horticulture/agriculture. Wyck's mission states, in part, that its goal is to "strengthen community life" and that was the driver for creating the Home Farm and outdoor education programs. Produce from Wyck's garden used to be sporadically set out in a cardboard box on the sidewalk, but otherwise there was no system for distribution to the community.
For the outdoor education program, we set out to identify what the needs were in schools with the closest proximity to Wyck. We found that most children were not spending time outdoors. One school had a parking lot with cars as their only outdoor space, and at another, children got to go to a playground once a week for an outing and otherwise spent their recesses in the school hallways. Meanwhile Wyck’s grounds, a beautiful and safe 2.5 acre open space, were being under-utilized. Most neighbors and teachers in the nearby schools did not know that Wyck was a museum, although it has been since 1973. Until we started these programs, we were largely invisible to our surrounding community. With the addition of the Home Farm and the outdoor education programs, we were able to integrate agriculture and education—and combine them with efforts to interpret our site’s history as well.
Can you describe the Home Farm and Outdoor Education Programs for me?
The Home Farm operates with several objectives in mind. It helps us interpret our site and is located on soil that has been used as pasture land or for vegetable and other crop production for more than 300 years. Many of the vegetable varieties are heirloom breeds and the methods of cultivation avoid many modern agricultural technologies including gas-powered tools, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides.
The Home Farm serves educational purposes beyond history as well. For many urban school children, agriculture is a distant concept. Basic scientific terms like pollination and germination are not defined here, they are witnessed. And the Home Farm not only provides students the opportunity to explore a working farm over the course of the season, but often a chance to pitch in and get their hands dirty. The Home Farm is also a resource for neighborhood gardeners who can volunteer at the Home Farm or stop by the Farmers Market for advice.
The Home Farm is also a productive attraction. Produce from the garden is sold at a weekly, on-site Farmers Market. Held every Friday afternoon from late May until late November, the market provides the neighborhood with healthy, affordable produce, and the neighborhood in turn helps support Wyck’s programming. The market draws many first-time visitors to Wyck and creates a social space for neighbors to enjoy the outdoors while swapping recipes, gardening tips, and gossip.
The outdoor education program themes are all grounded in the exploration of natural science, horticulture and farming for food, but the delivery of the program happens both at Wyck and in classrooms, and ranges from games to hands-on lessons to vocationally based work projects.
Who comes to the farmers market and the outdoor education programs?
The Farmers Market appeals to a diverse audience, but is primarily geared towards neighbors living within a mile or so of Wyck. Since it’s located on the sidewalk of busy Germantown Avenue, it attracts passersby as spontaneous grocery shoppers along with people who arrive at the market every week with their reusable shopping bags. Also, in part because of the Farmers Market Nutrition Program, which offers one-time use coupons that can only be used at farmers markets to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables, the market attracts a lot of mothers and seniors.
We have focused our outdoor education programs on schools that are within walking distance of Wyck so that we are serving students from our immediate neighborhood, but also so that transportation is not an impediment to participating in the program. We serve more than 200 school children a week during our busiest time of year, and participant numbers are still expanding as we continue to form new relationships with schools and teachers in the area. The children who participate in Wyck outdoor education programs come from public and independent schools and range in grade level from Head Start to High School. We have also begun working with a number of autism spectrum classes.
Due to the proximity of many participant schools and teacher recognition that our program provides a valuable missing piece in the lives and education of many of their students, we have been able to establish ongoing, weekly Wyck programs with many groups. The development of this type of relationship is enriching for all involved. Students benefit from the regular reinforcement of concepts and from feeling a real connection to and sense of belonging in the outdoor space at Wyck. Teachers build connections and extensions to their own curriculum from the lessons at Wyck, and Wyck not only receives help with outdoor projects, but builds a broader and deeper connection to the community and benefits from a new generation of people who know and love the site.
Who works on the programs? How much staff time is dedicated to them?
We have a part-time Home Farm Manager who spends, on average, 25 hours a week planting, harvesting, and preparing for market. We also have a part-time Outdoor Educator who spends 900 hours working on the program each school year. Our Horticulturist oversees and supports both of these programs, including stepping in when needed to substitute for a class.
Who else do you work with to make the programs a success?
We partner with The Food Trust on this market and they provide the technical support necessary to accept food stamps and have made arrangements for Amos Fisher, a Lancaster county Amish farmer, to participate in the market. This has helped make our market unique, convenient, and affordable for our neighbors. We also work with West Central Germantown Neighbors, Greater Philadelphia Cares, City Harvest, Mastery Charter School (Pickett School— we are working with them as a satellite garden project site), and various service organizations.
Do you see these programs affecting the way you approach programming at Wyck going forward? How?
These programs have allowed us to not only interpret our site’s history in a very dynamic and contemporary way, but they have also enabled us to serve our community in a much more outwardly-focused way. Our Home Farm/Farmers Market and outdoor education program have allowed us to become known to our community, to reach beyond the literal fence that surrounds us and keeps us hidden. This year we will be adding open house hours during our Farmers Market so that market-goers can peek in and learn a little more about our history and what Wyck is. We will also be creating additional connections between the Farmers Market and our outdoor education program, encouraging student participants to bring their families to shop at the market (and to eat the produce they’ve helped grow) through various incentives.
Laura Koloski is Heritage Philadelphia Program’s Senior Program Specialist, and a lover of all things vegetable.
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