Alpaca Lunch for Our Community

This fundraiser is organized by Gaia's Way.

Tax deductible

You can make a difference by donating today to Gaia's Way at Hawridge Farm. Gaia's Way means "Way of the Land" and every day we look to our land for ways to enhance our community.

Our mission is to help our community eat healthy and heal from trauma. After a terrible scare of almost losing a loved one to Covid, we decided to sell everything and moved from Cape Cod Massachusetts to an extremely impoverished rural area of mid-state New York. In graciousness, we took the opportunity to buy a farm and grow our non-profit.

We currently are supplying local food pantries with farm-fresh, free-range eggs. The initiative was inspired by our granddaughter Pips - hence Pips Chicks eggs.

In 2022 we provided:

• Over 1000 fresh, range free chicken eggs to several local food pantries and other community members in need.

• We worked with youth suffering from trauma.

• We built a new barn with many hard-working volunteers. No contractors - all by ourselves! Most of it is level!

• The barn houses our alpacas and horses.

• We gratefully used donations to help bring electricity and water to our new barn.

In 2023, we are embarking on an ambitious strategy to build and begin our aquaponics operation. The plans are drawn, the ground is ready, and the fish stock tanks are being prepared. We envision a near future where we will make fresh fish and vegetables available to local food pantries, in addition to our eggs. With your help, we should be able to drop off our fish and veggies by December 2023. Hopefully, we can drop off honey the following year.

We are also planning for this year:

• Trauma retreats for youth and adults.

• Free children’s library.

• Drop-in hours for children to pet the animals and learn about sustainable food growth through aquaponics.

• Beginning our animal husbandry by buying Cooper our young Great Pyrenees male and 2 young male dwarf goats.

• Setting up our bee hives.

• Fencing in our new 6-acre pasture for our soon-to-be mother alpacas and their babies (cria).

• French drains at the new barn

This is an exciting time for Gaia’s Way, BUT we need your help! We had some bad luck this winter with our farm vehicles. Our 4-wheeler’s (quad) transmission quit, and our farm truck camshaft went out, so we need a new engine.

Our 2023 spring fundraiser will ask a lot of our donors and supporters. We are looking to raise $50,000.

We need your help with the following:

• Your donations will continue the work we have started by completing our greenhouse, which will house our aquaponics system. Fresh fish and vegetables will be given to the local food pantries all winter long, beginning in December of 2023.

• We need to buy a new engine for our Dodge Ram 1500. We use the truck to get around the property in the snow and rain. We rely on the truck to bring feed, hay, straw, and building materials to the farm. I already miss my trips to Tractor Supply… Jennies little VW bug just can’t handle the work required on the farm. There are only so many feed bags you can fit in a Bug!

• We need solar panels for the greenhouse.

• Filtration system for fish stock tanks.

We need to buy a new quad. We use the quad for hauling wood, stone, debris, tools, feed and hay from barn to barn and other areas on the 20 acres.

Your donations will get us a new quad and the truck back on the road. Tough to give fall hayrides in a VW Bug!

If you have read this far, you must be interested. Please look at our pictures and listen to our video, and ask any questions you would like. We may be the stewards of our small farm, but without the help of others, we just can't reach our goals.

Nancy is a trauma specialist and utilizes the land and animals as tools to help youth and veterans suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Jennie studies Depth Psychology with an emphasis on Jungian techniques that give a safe space for our clients.

We have 7 Great Pyrenees/Maremma dogs to keep our farm safe, 8 dwarf goats, 6 alpacas with 2 babies due this spring, 8 cats, 40 chickens, 3 horses, and 3 older retired dogs that live inside. All the animals are used with our clients, yes even some of the chickens. We had a client once who held a rooster during her entire session to help her discuss her trauma!