| Located
in the Hudson Valley (Stanfordville, New York),
Sisters Hill Farm is a Community Supported Agriculture
(CSA) project of
the Sisters
of Charity of New York. The farm provides shareholders
with five to fifteen pounds of fresh, organic
vegetables every week from June to November. Shares
are distributed
at the farm and also at Mount St. Vincent in the
Bronx. The farm staff publishes a weekly newsletter
with creative recipies using part of the week’s
harvest. The Sisters see the CSA project as a means
to help restore the lost connection between people
and agriculture by providing an opportunity for
members to be directly connected to how their food
is grown. “Community” is an important
goal of Sisters Hill Farm as well: shareholders
enjoy each other’s company on distribution days
and at picnics held during the summer at the farm.
In addition to growing healthy produce in an environmentally-responsible
fashion, one of the main goals of Sisters Hill
Farm is to donate approximately twenty-five percent
of the harvest to soup kitchens and food pantries,
meals-on-wheels
programs, and needy families. Advocating on behalf
of the poor for more than 180 years, the Sisters
of Charity of New York understand this project
to be a natural extension of their work. |
Christianity
(Roman Catholic) |
United States of America
(Stanfordville, New
York) |
| 1997–Present |
The roots of the
Sisters Hill Farm CSA project go back to 1917,
when the Sisters of Charity
of New York were willed the Stanfordville property
that included a productive farm. The Sisters
continued to oversee the farm until the 1940s,
when the
land was left fallow. In July of 1995, at the
General
Chapter of the Sisters of Charity, a vision statement
was written calling on the congregation to focus
its energies in the new millennium on three areas:
the poor, women, and the Earth. Part of the statement
calls the congregation “to reverence creation
in a spirit of interconnectedness with all that
is, living responsibly.” Soon after, a proposal
was submitted to establish a CSA farm on the
Stanfordville property as a tangible way of enacting
this statement.
With a grant from the congregation, a pilot project
was launched in 1997, and the first season of
Sisters Hill Farm officially began in 1999 with
forty shareholders.
Each year more shareholders have joined. As of
2004, 200 shareholders participate in the project.
|
| The Mission of Sisters
Hill Farm is to grow healthy food which nurtures
bodies, spirits, communities,
and the Earth. |
Meals on Wheels of Stanford,
New York
Lunch Box, Poughkeepsie, New York
Casa Esperanza,
Yonkers, New York
The Sharing Community,
Yonkers, New York
P. O. T. S., Bronx, New York
Fox
House, New York
The Handmaids of Mary,
New York |
| The Sisters have made
energy conservation a priority for the future,
including solar energy and straw-bale construction. |
| None Listed |
| None Listed |
David Hambleton
Farmer
Sisters Hill Farm
P.O. Box 22
Stanfordville, NY 12581
Ph: 845.868.7048
Sr. Mary Ann Garisto
Farm Director
Mount St. Vincent
6301 Riverdale Ave.
Bronx, NY 10471
Ph: 718.543.6627
Email: mgaristo@aol.com
|
