Renting a field as a group
At Minna no Uen Kitakagaya, plots can be used not only by individuals but also by groups. Since 2013, one of our users has been To Rise Meet, an after-school day service based in Kitakagaya. It is a day service for children with developmental disabilities. The children grow vegetables, and once a month they make lunch together with freshly harvested produce and eat it.
In August 2013, on the day of the workshop to till our second field with a large cultivator, To Rise Meet joined us as new members. It was a day of meeting participants of all ages and from all different places.
A harvest party in the snow
In February 2014, we held a harvest party for the winter vegetables we had grown since summer. Back when they sowed the seeds, it was so hot and tough that the children half doubted anything would really grow. A heavy snow had fallen overnight and the farm was blanketed in white, but the children were only more excited. They dug through the snow to harvest radishes, turnips, green onions, spinach and potatoes, and we all cooked together.
In May, we made a "four-color rice bowl" with the peas we had sown in March. For the children who don't like beans, staff and student volunteers prepared a special sauce starting the day before. In the field, we cleared away the pea plants and planted sweet potato vine cuttings for roasted sweet potatoes in autumn.
Support from growing up within the community
At Christmas 2013, together with the children's cooking class, we also put on an event to host people from the neighborhood. Through the farm, the children from the day service meet people in town and other children their age. I have watched how a place for welfare does not stay shut inside a facility, but spreads out into the community.
A field has time for waiting, without hurry. You can take part at your own pace, and the results are right there to see. I feel that this nature of the field is what makes the partnership between welfare and the farm work.