Special Needs Group Leaves Wickham's Fruit Farm After Confrontation With Owner

A group that included about 20 developmentally disabled students cut short a recent trip to Wickham’s Fruit Farm in Cutchogue after a confrontation with owner Gekee Wickham.

Stephanie Williams, a staff member with the Economic Opportunity Council of Suffolk, told Patch she took the students, ranging in age from about 19 to 50, along with five supervisors (including herself) for a field trip to the Main Road farm on Monday, Sept. 20.

Prior to the trip, Williams says she called the farm to confirm and remind the owners that she would be arriving with students with special needs.

She says that Gekee Wickham expressed concern, telling Williams that she had issues in the past with special needs visitors, but Williams told her it wouldn’t be a problem since the students were all highly functioning and there would be supervisors there.

However, when the group arrived at the farm, while the students were browsing, Williams says she overheard Wickham telling a staff member at the farm that she didn’t want the students to touch anything and didn’t want them to be without any supervision.

Wickham, however, contends that she would have “said the same to any child or adult who was handling the merchandise,” according to a SoutholdLOCAL report.

Williams then confronted Wickham to reassure that everything was alright. She claims that during that conversation, Wickham was very professional.

“I didn’t think anything was wrong at that point,” Williams said.

Later, another supervisor, Lucy Belle, approached Williams, telling her that Wickham had been rude with her. When Williams confronted her again, Wickham allegedly told her that she had issues in the past with other agencies and told Williams that “they’re bad for business and I don’t want them here.”

When one of the students touched Wickham on the shoulders, she “looked disgusted” and “was very mad,” according to Williams.

“I was shocked that she reacted that way,” Williams said. “She’s had disabled people at her business in the past.”

Tom Wickham, Gekee Wickham Wickham’s husband and the co-owner of the farm told The Suffolk Times that being touched ”surprised her and she reacted. One of the group leaders said ‘Oh, that’s rude’ and they turned around and left. That’s basically what happened … We were happy to have them.”

Williams then cut the trip short and told Gekee Wickham that they were leaving to which she responded “It’s fine you can leave,” according to Williams.

“Everything she said was rude,” Williams said. “I understand it’s a business, but she seemed like she just didn’t care. My staff has worked with them for such a long time and we never experienced anything like this.”

The thing that angered her the most, according to Williams, was that Wickham did it “in front of the students” which is why she simply left and didn’t say anything else.

“She didn’t care, she didn’t try, she could’ve handled that in a different way,” Williams said of Wickham. “It took us an hour and 15 minutes to get there. We wouldn’t drive all that way just to get mad and waste time.”

The following day one of the parents, who found out about the situation after receiving a refund from the trip, made a Facebook post expressing her anger on the situation at which point “it got bigger,” Williams said.

Many people flocked to the Wickham’s Fruit Farm Facebook page to give bad reviews and express their anger after the post was made, the story reaching people as far as New Hampshire and California.

Williams wrote her own post on Facebook expressing her anger.

“The world is filled with simple and hateful people that have minds that go no further then a cardboard box,” she wrote. “No one with developmental disabilities should be treated as such. I know I can’t kill the hateful actions of people who act as though they are better then them but I definitely want to make sure something is done about Wickham’s Fruit Farm.”

Wickham told SoutholdLOCAL that the group of students entered the farmstand area without supervision and were touching the packages of food and fruits, and leaning close to smell the pie boxes.

She says that she quietly asked the teachers to “please take students who were not buying anything, out of the shop; those who were hoping to purchase something were asked to come in accompanied by a teacher,” according to the report.

“Every year, we have a lot of special needs kids,” she told SoutholdLOCAL. The groups come back many years in a row, she added. “I’m so open to hosting these groups. We never say special ed students can’t come here. How could you do that?”

Afterwards, Williams says that Tom Wickham called her to apologize on behalf of his wife.

“I told him that if he was there this situation wouldn’t have happened,” she said.

However she felt that the apology “wasn’t genuine” because it didn’t come from Gekee Wickham herself.

“It actually hurt because I worked with this organization for eight years and we never had a problem before,” Williams said. “The students are all very high functioning and they understood what happened and asked me why they were rude. It made them feel like they weren’t people. It hurt me they had to experience that.

“We’re a community based program. We take them everywhere and no one has ever treated them that way.”

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