Our mission is to empower youth through the shared work of farming to grow food for partner organizations who distribute this food to families in need.
Through growing vegetables and raising livestock on our organic farm, we provide alternative education and avenues of employment to youth who have barriers to thriving within traditional systems and teach personal responsibility, social responsibility, and professional skills.
Welcome to WTF! We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit Certified Organic farm in Hillsboro, Oregon. We cultivate community partnerships to connect with youth who have barriers to thriving within traditional systems.
The day-to-day work of farming offers many opportunities for building personal and social responsibility. As youth gain confidence and competence in the work, we trust them to steward the care of crops and livestock alike, and as a result develop a sense of responsibility and investment in the outcomes.
We invite corporate volunteer groups to the farm, exponentially increasing the productive labor force and creating an opportunity for young people to act as leaders among an audience of adult professionals, demonstrating their expertise and building soft skills along the way.
As a consequence of these efforts we produce a massive amount of quality food. Over the last four years we have donated more than 60,000 pounds to families in need.
Donate
We could not facilitate this youth development work or distribute thousands of pounds of food to folks in need without your generosity. Please click the button below if you would like to make a tax-deductible donation to support our mission.
Our Pigs
We have sold all of our 2023 pork shares. Contact Henney at henney@workingtheoryfarm.com to reserve a share for 2024 or click below to read about our pigs.
CSA Shares
CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. It is a system pioneered in the USA by black farmer and Tuskegee Institute horticulturalist Booker T. Whatley in the 1960s as a way for black owned farms to thrive despite discriminatory government loan practices. It enables farmers to plan production, anticipate demand, and have a guaranteed market for their products. Members commit to buying a “share” of the bounty of a farm for a season, and in return, the farmers commit to providing as much local, nutritious food as they can grow to their community members.
Year in Review
-
2022 was a year of many firsts! Along with launching our first CSA program, we continued to transition away from tillage and toward improved soil health by adding compost, cardboard, and bark chips to establish over 150 nutrient-dense planting beds. A big thank you to all the volunteers who made this enormous endeavor possible! Check us out in the Tualatin Soil and Water Conservation District’s beautiful video below, highlighting the impact of the Conservation Education Grant that funded this project.
Alongside employing 10 youth this summer as part of our second annual Summer Cohort, we also hired alumni from our 2021 Summer Cohort to begin our Crew Leadership program to teach new youth employees and deepen their farming knowledge and skills. One of the great joys of this season is watching our Crew Leaders grow into skilled farmers who are assets to our team and cultivate not only food but also community in their work with volunteers, customers, and new youth.
2022 has been a beautiful year of growth and learning and we are looking forward to all that is in store for these coming years. Looking ahead to 2023, we’re planning to hire a Youth Program Manager to steward our growing mentoring and workforce development programs and are also excited to hire several part-time farm staff to support an increase in winter production, storage, and distribution through a four-year USDA Community Food Project we received in collaboration with our partners at Centro Cultural.
-
What a year it’s been on the 24 acres we call WTF! We weathered historic heat waves (116 degrees!), chicken predation, ill-timed irrigation disasters, and the second year of a global pandemic to grow boatloads of organic fruits and vegetables. We spent the year building deep relationships with the young people we support, and we made some big changes to our program along the way.Our biggest growth was the launch of an initiative to employ and support young people impacted by the juvenile justice system, homelessness, or housing instability. Through our inaugural Summer Harvest Crew we employed eight youth as an intensive cohort in July and August, switching to weekend work days and mentorship during September and October to support these youth as they transitioned into the academic year. We've downshifted over the winter to one farm work day per month, but we look forward to starting weekly work days again in March of 2022. We function as both employer and social services organization and we collaborate with counselors, families, and our partners at HomePlate Youth Services to help youth access medical care, to find them beds in shelters, to support their families through evictions, and to respond to any other needs they express.
We have had a host of other highlights from the year and will share a few glimpses here:
We donated more than 10,000 pounds to people experiencing food insecurity through our friends at Centro Cultural and other partner organizations;
We transitioned to no-till agriculture to regenerate soil health and increase organic matter content;
We established our first Board of Directors.
Looking ahead to 2022, we’re excited to build on these successes and continue improving these systems. We will launch a CSA to help cover the costs of the food we donate and the work that we do with youth. We will continue to work with our 2021 Summer Harvest Crew weekly from March through June, building toward a program that supports summer participants throughout the following academic year. We are excited to hire 2021 youth employees as Crew Leaders to teach and mentor our 2022 Summer Harvest Crew and deepen their own knowledge. We've posted openings for a Community Engagement Manager and a Development Director and are excited to grow our team. Take a look here and spread the word!
