How would you like to snuggle with a baby goat? Or sleep in a castle? Or hand-feed a famous giant sea turtle? You can experience all these things and more by bidding in Natick Community Organic Farm’s online auction September 6-10 at www.natickfarm.org
Natick Community Organic Farm, Natick’s own public nonprofit working farm, is open every day during daylight hours with no admission fee year round for everyone to visit, and to source locally grown certified-organic vegetables and cut flowers, humanely raised meat and eggs, as well as honey, woolen yarn, and maple syrup. Some 20,000 people visit the farm every year to enjoy the animals, walk the fields, buy local food, learn about farms, and to volunteer.
NCOF also a big employer of young people, hiring over two dozen local teenagers every year through its Teen Work Crew and Apprenticeship Program. Through physically tough and mentally challenging outdoor work, teens contribute meaningfully to the farm’s success, learn new skills, and build up their confidence, self-worth, accountability, and resiliency. This past summer, the Teen Work Crew workers renovated the farm’s sugar shack, so that it will be a better place to make maple syrup and people of all ages to learn about the process. The Teen Apprentices operated a pop-up market stand at the Natick Community Senior Center, making fresh local food more accessible to Natick seniors.
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This online auction will help to raise some the wages for next year’s teens. All the auction prizes are donated, mostly by local businesses and community members. Some of them are great fun, like the chance to feed NCOF-grown certified-organic lettuce to New England Aquarium’s famous sea turtle, Myrtle. Just ask last years’ winners, Natick residents Alison Campbell, Karl Jackson, and their son Ben Jackson, who recently fed the 90-year-old turtle lettuce and lettuce-herring wraps with a long-handled reacher from the top of the Big Ocean Tank. Campbell described it “[The experience] is like what the Farm does for the community, teaching about the behind-the-scenes of what goes into growing food. We got the same experience at the aquarium. We got to see how much work it is to take care of Myrtle, and all the others living in the big tank, how many people are involved, what goes into it...it was truly amazing.”
To learn more about online auction, NCOF, and its Teen programs, please visit www.natickfarm.org.
