Free Haven Educational Farms is a special place, for many different reasons. Supplying healthy produce to the community, especially those place we see affected most because they can't even have access to healthy food without traveling long distances, is necessary and important work that has to be done if we want to start to see an improvement to the quality of life in these neighborhoods and communities.

What we've been able to find is that in these communities, providing the food is only addressing maybe half of the issue. Creating the long term improvements we are hoping to see, we realized that we would have to focus on education, the youth, the elders, and everyone in between. We were going to have to focus on collaborations that can help us achieve our goal. We were going to have to make ourselves extremely accessible, and in a lot of cases, bring it to the people. Bring them the food, the education, the awareness, the opportunities.

We have been able to strategize based on information we have received in our 11 years of being involved in Urban Farming and Education, working in communities in Atlanta, Philadelphia, and now New Jersey. Growing food and serving farmers markets in the middle of the hood, as well as working with after school programing at the local public schools for years have given us a chance to really have our fingers on the pulse of the community. From these experiences we can see realistic approaches to solving evolving issues within our community, understand the pressure that affects people, and develop ways to alleviate them.

We have put ourselves in a good position here at Free Haven Farms to take this important work to another level . Our production farm also serves as an outdoor classroom where our community can have hands-on experiences in a safe green space that allows them to interact with nature, learn about how the food we eat grows, and have experiences that will help heal some of the trauma living in underserved urban communities causes. In addition, Dr. Cynthia Hall of Free Haven Educational Farms is a Professor of Geochemistry, who also specializes in soil science and environmental studies. We are working on implementing farm tours that will lead the youth to pursue further studies and at the University level with increased career opportunities thereafter. We plan to expand our food distribution to more farmers markets in more impoverished areas, giving struggling families the opportunity to access high quality local produce with food assistance programs like access cards, FMNP checks, and other food vouchers.  We also look to increase the number of memberships we can take at our CSA's. In addition we look to expand our services to help interested families establish their own food production systems at home, empowering them to grow food for their family and community.

Our other initiatives include nutrition education and physical education. The physical education comes through our Capoeira and Yoga programs that are lead by very experienced practicing educators. Our workshops include a wide range of professionals that we partner with and give a platform to teach their expertise to our community. We offer overnight camps an day summer camps on our Farm Site, as well as the after school programming that we bring to schools across New Jersey and Philadelphia.

There is definitely a difference between busy and productive. We have been both, in just our Second official season at Free Haven Farms. We have served over......lbs of food, to over 200 people, increasing our numbers every season. Our farm has had over 300 visitors in those two years, who have participated in tours and camps. We have been able to reach out to the ones the haven't been able to come out to the farm and have brought our educational works to over 100 students over the past two years.

There are now few black farmers, and even fewer that are interested in educating their community, building bridges instead walls. What we are seeking is financial backing through the ones that are in support of the unique work we do. Finances to expand and continue the work of taking care of those that need it the most first......