Voice!

So, it’s been said that Wesleyan students are movers and shakers — founding projects, starting movements, speaking our minds, using our voices — you can see all around campus that students are fleshing out the real meaning of the word ‘creation’. But not only do Wes students build from the ground up, we build from the ground in too. Wesleyan’s student initiated, founded and run farm is called Long Lane Farm, a totally organic project. Long Lane blossomed from a club created in 2004 for students to come together and learn about food security issues every Monday night at 7 pm, to a full acre piece of land chock full of vegetables and flowers, which also operates as a farmstand, a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) accessible on a sliding scale, and the site of an educational internship program for high school students.

This time of year, Long Lane is overflowing with baskets of tomatoes, swiss chard, eggplant, pumpkins, carrots, beets, and more…it’s warm from the cobb stove baking pizza with fresh veggies on top, buzzing with the bees making honey, and full of students from all years biking, walking, jogging out to the farm for Saturday workdays. The Long Lane Farm project has community gardens around town as well. During my freshman spring, I took a student-led forum on sustainability during which I brought a class of students from a local elementary school to the Washinton Street community garden, some of whom had no idea where their vegetables at dinner came from and definietely no idea that they could in fact eat that which they themselves planted! That day I helped them plant a plot with lettuce, carrots and flowers, and then met them back at the garden a few months later to see the progress and harvest their crops.

Long Lane has worked to develop a relationship with the Middletown community through events at the farm such as Harvest Festivals and May Day celebrations in the fall and spring with lots of kids and families, student bands, a may day pole, apple pies, pumpkin painting and harvesting. It’s donated food to the St. Vincent De Paul Place Soup Kitchen, sold veggies to Its Only Natural Market in town, and generally worked to explore and embody the spirit of local, organic foods, sustainability, community-orientation and fun. The best part of it all is that the farm continues to be powered by student energy, commitment, digging, tilling and planting. Students involved with Long Lane still meet weekly to talk about farm planning and issues around food security, but now also have regular potlucks and make jam, pickles and tomato sauce. The farm is always open, with a chalkboard on the side of the shed listing all of the tasks for the week….so, anytime you’re on campus feel free to put on your overalls, grab a hoe and get in the dirt, or simply lie on the hammock and take a breather. Hope to see you out there!

Grace Lesser ‘08
Senior Interviewer