“Volunteering is the ultimate exercise in democracy. You vote in elections once a year, but when you volunteer, you vote every day about the kind of community you want to live in.”

-Marjorie Moore

As another term comes to an end, we reflect upon the recent weeks: of the skills we have learned, the people we have met, and the possibility of adopting these agrarian philosophies in the future. Each term at the farm, we afford our participants the opportunity to develop their skills further through various volunteer programs in the greater Eugene community. Consequently, several of these organizations are run or maintained by Urban Farm alumni. This program acts as a subset of the Urban Farm, allowing students to earn credit while performing in their community. Students choose any number of these agrarian projects to devote a minimum of 8 hours of service to. These projects include but are not limited to: Food for Lane County, Huerto de la Familia, Willamette Farm and Food Coalition, Farm to School Program, Creslane Elementary School Garden, Center for the Advancement of Sustainable Living, U of O Edible Campus Program, Serbu Center Farm and Laurel Valley Educational Farm. The programs listed above give light to the real world implementation of agrarian skills acquired at the Urban Farm. Students gain insight into the further implications of their actions on a communal scale, truly capturing the essence of experiential learning.

We are happy to work with the Serbu Youth Services Farm! (above picture: garden beds within fences of Serbu Facility)

We are happy to work with the Serbu Youth Services Farm!
(above picture: garden beds within fences of Serbu Facility)

Relative to other University of Oregon programs, the Urban Farm boasts a hefty amount of volunteer service in the community. It is difficult to measure the intrinsic change that a participant may go through after experiencing the principles of agrarian philosophy. However, it is within reaches to quantify the relative effectiveness of farm participants in the community. Spring term alone, the Urban Farm served as a class to 110 students. We estimate that the farm community devoted more than 900 HOURS of their time to the community this quarter. Annually, Urban Farm students dedicate more than 3,500 HOURS of service to the agrarian sectors of their community. Even compared to the employees who work full-time for the organizations in question, these numbers are quite significant. Molly Bullock of the Willamette Farm to School Program says, “Without the volunteers to educate these children about where our food comes from, this program would not exist.” The Farm to School organization maintains that over 75% of its volunteer hours are accredited to the Univeristy of Oregon Urban Farm. It is testimony such as this that motivates the Urban Farm to grow, and maintain its effect in the University, and greater Eugene communities. These volunteer opportunities allow students to participate in all parts of a closed loop communal system, from education, to scaled implementation. The Urban Farm program offers its participants a real world glimpse into the multi-faceted effect of agrarian behaviors in their community.