Скачать или смотреть Christopher Brown of Growing Veterans

Produced for the JM Kaplan Fund Innovation Prize.

Through a blend of peer mentoring, community farming, and “dirt therapy,” Growing Veterans uses sustainable agriculture as a catalyst for ending homelessness, suicide, and addiction among veterans in Western Washington. The program’s fresh approach to veteran reintegration, according to Growing Veterans’ Co-founder Christopher Brown, emerged from his own journey as a veteran who found solace growing food and nurturing life in the garden. With two primary farms, as well as a network of farmer’s markets and affiliated non-profit farms, the program offers veterans an opportunity to work beside their families, fellow veterans, and community volunteers, recapturing a sense of belonging to something larger than themselves. While creating a peer-support network to end the damaging effects of veteran isolation, the program enables veterans to acquire agricultural skills, easing their transition into the civilian world—and increasing the likelihood that they’ll become farm owners or operators to replace our nation’s aging farmer population (in Washington State, the average age of farmers is 58 years). To date, approximately one veteran monthly has been placed into agricultural occupations, while supporting organic food production and providing hope, purpose, and camaraderie to veterans in a transformative approach to building community capital.