A new collaboration among Bank of America, Washington State Mentors, and Left Foot Organics Farm in Olympia has resulted in an infusion of $5,000 into the nonprofit farm that trains and employs rural teens and people with disabilities.

Lt. Governor Brad Owens commemorated the program’s start-up Monday with kudos for its creativity.

"Left Foot Organics promotes self-sufficiency, inclusion, and independence for low-income rural youth and people with disabilities by working together to produce good food for the community on this 5-acre farm,” he told a crowd gathered Monday afternoon in the country.

“It is exactly this kind of innovation (that) helps us reach more young people, who with a little assistance can experience the satisfaction and pride that comes along with making a positive contribution to their community.”

Owens said that we know from research that having a caring adult in their lives is the most important difference between kids who succeed and those who don’t.

This week is an important one for Left Foot Organics.  Not only does it mark receipt of the grant, the week also culminates in a “Fun Farm Formal” fundraiser at the five-acre farm in Thurston County on Saturday, Oct. 18. For a glimpse of what’s up for auction, take a look at the farm’s Web site.

The grant will be administered by Washington Mentors, which offers promotion and training as well as advocacy and funding, to organizations throughout the state that provide mentoring to its citizens.

The farm, run by Ann Vandeman, has mentored some 50 people since she founded the program in 2001.  It currently employs eight people with cognitive disabilities.  For most of the people who have been employed over the years, this is their first job.  “Some really want to stay,” says Vandeman.  “Others use it as we all do, as a stepping stone.”

Many of the employees, ages 21-50, come to Left Foot Organics through high school transition programs whereby students who have completed their academic studies move on to primarily vocational education.  This is the result of public schools’ mandate to provide educational services to students with special needs until they are 21.

The farm’s success is based on two essentials:  founder Vandeman herself — her passion — as well as an assortment of volunteers, who serve as mentors and model peers to the employees.

“She’s the greatest person in the world, I’m telling you,” says Robert Elliott, the second employee hired.  “This is her life.”

Elliott, who suffered a traumatic brain injury at age 22 in a head-on collision in 1989 and lay in a coma for 12 days, took several years to learn to speak again, and still suffers seizures.

“I’m not the kind to sit around all day,” he says.  “I saw the ad and applied.” 

He now works with the farm’s chickens and sells produce at the Proctor Farmer’s Market, where he loves to “draw people in” and visit with the vendors.

Volunteers are essential to the farm’s mission.  “They help employees work through challenges” on their way to independent living, according to Vandeman.  “The employees learn basic job skills in an integrated and diverse work environment.”

The on-site volunteers usually come from Thurston County, while Pierce County residents tend to help out most at the Saturday market on North Proctor.  The farm also sells produce — vegetables, herbs, and cut flowers, along with herb plants and vegetable starts — on Wednesdays at the Tumwater Farmer’s Market.

Vandeman says her greatest challenge is accepting outcomes.  “Agriculture is a lot like raising kids.  You feel like you’re doing everything you can, and you can still turn around and things don’t go right for people.

"People are a lot like plants.  There is always an element of uncertainty.  You have to accept when a crop doesn’t come out right.  You have to accept a diversity of outcomes.” 

The farm, however, provides her with many pleasures.  “I love watching people grow, how they gain confidence,” she says.  Nothing can beat “that first smile from someone who has not looked you in the eye before — or has just mastered a new skill, and is excited to come to work every day.”

The grant will help support that essential goal of the farm, nurturing the human spirit through gainful work.  Application for the grant grew out of “the [recent] revelation to us that we do mentor,” Vandeman says.

Left Foot Organics is a CSA, which stands for Community Supported Agriculture, whereby residents invest in their local farm and then receive a box (or “share”) of produce from that week’s harvest.  Investors pay up front, at the beginning of the season.

“What this does,” says Vandeman, “is substitute for an operating loan from the bank.  And it’s a way of sharing the risk ... some years a crop may do well, while in other years, it may not.”