Farm & Gardens
At L’Arche Farm & Gardens, we strive to offer a safe and welcoming environment that provides meaningful farm and garden work to persons with developmental disabilities. The Farm is a collaborative setting in which people with a diversity of gifts and abilities work toward common goals. Each farm worker, whether core member, assistant or volunteer is affirmed in his or her dignity, selfworth and connection to life. Emphasis is placed on working with the core members to complete tasks, rather than doing for them.
L'Arche Farm and Gardens began in 1982 in order to provide work for a number of our core members who were unemployed at the time. Although our beginnings were quite humble, we have been blessed over the years and have grown to a team of 9 employees with developmental disabilities, 5 full time assistants, and numerous faithful volunteers, without whom we don’t know what we would do!
We recently broke ground on our lastest venture - Sutherland Orchard. Named in memory of our hard-working, overflowing with love brother, Dick Sutherland, this orchard has apple trees and blueberry bushes which will bear fruit to help fill the cupboards at the Food Connection in downtown Tacoma.
Year after year, our greenhouses and fields are filled with organic vegetable starts, hanging mixed baskets, a wide variety of perennial and annual flowers, and all kinds of unique offerings. We kick off our season with our Spring Fling on the last Saturday of April and wrap things up for the year with our Harvestfest on the first Saturday of October. During this window, we regularly attend a number of Farmers Markets. In December we sell fresh evergreen wreaths for the holidays. Our Craft Program is home to a variety of different products created with our handmade paper.
Click here to view the video that L'Arche Farm and Gardens recently contributed to about Eating Locally in Pierce County.
Find out more about Farm and Gardens by following these links: