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| The Greening of Westport. Think of your Library as the ultimate recycler. We buy one item, you use it, bring it back, and it’s used again. You also can recycle your personal books for our book sales. Now, in cooperation with the Green Village Initiative (GVI), the Library presents three programs in March to raise your awareness. Going one step further, GVI is helping the Library café stock local, healthy food (yes, for those who haven’t been inside the Library, we’re one of the rare public libraries with a café). Bon appétit!
Wakeman Farm to Become Locus of Westport GVI’s Green Food Initiatives
These barn doors are the future entrance to the CSA pick up. Good thing Westport GVI never settled on a commercial space suitable for distributing the CSA from Shelton-based Stone Gardens Farm they started last year for Westport residents. As fortune would have it, the Wakeman Farm and house on Cross Highway became available for lease from the town for $1 per year last spring and Westport GVI’s team jumped at the chance to lease the property. The town embraced their proposal for a Town Farm on the site and GVI recently announced the signing of a five-year lease and plans to once again farm the 2.2 acre property.
The house is being restored to get ready for its new residents - the Aitkenhead Family. Westport GVI is a group with clarity of vision and the people and resources to see it realized. The house is being spruced up so the future residents can move in by June. May this be a happy home to Mike Aitkenhead, Staples HS Environmental Teacher and 2009 Westport Teacher of the Year, who will take up residence at and oversee the Town Farm along with his wife, Carrie, and their one year old son, Ethan.
The house and barn viewed from Cross Highway.
A view of the house from Cross Highway Don’t mind the dumpster; there’s no gutting going on in this historic house. You can see from the above photo that there’s no insulation in the walls and the plaster was cracking so badly in some places that it had to be removed. Think of how beautiful this spacious house is going to look with some new wall board, paint, appliances and fixtures.
The office, cold storage and CSA share distribution will be housed in the barn. The aged red barn is being renovated from the inside out in preparation for CSA season. This is where you will come to pick up your Stone Gardens Farm CSA share each week from Carrie. Don’t have a share yet? Sign up now! Future plans include the addition of CSA shares from other area farms and add ons like local eggs, cheese, poultry, meat, flowers and honey to make the CSA more full service. These will come after appropriate food service licenses have been obtained and the Town Health Department has given its blessing.
Most of the original 18 acres of Wakeman Farm are now home to Westport's middle and high school on Wakeman Farm Drive. Planting of organic vegetables will begin in the spring at Wakeman Farm, but don’t expect enough production for their own CSA. A farm stand is more likely. The intention was never to grow enough food for the whole town, but rather serve as a model of environmentally sustainable agriculture and an educational facility.
The new slop sink is ready to clean some farm fresh vegetables. The facilities also include a classroom for classes and workshops.
Town Farm Director Becky Howe cited a book, The Backyard Homestead, as the foundation of their message to the public, “You can grow all the food you need on a quarter acre. Anybody can do this. We’re going to be a model of how to do it and provide continuing education to the community in everything from composting to organic gardening to beekeeping so they can get comfortable doing these things on their own.” Andrew (from Andrew’s Local Honey) is going to drop off one of his hives here and Westport GVI board member Sherri Brooks Vinton will give canning and preserving workshops. Get excited but be patient, be supportive, and visit often. It’s going to take the whole community to make this work, and there’s no doubt that it will. http://fairfieldgreenfoodguide.com/2010/01/21/wakeman-farm-to-become-locus-of-westport-gvis-green-food-initiatives/
 More than 200 people turned out Saturday night for a fundraiser organized by the Westport Green Village Initiative at the Unitarian Church in Westport. The event, which included live dance music, food and drinks, raised more than $20,000 for Save the Sound – Connecticut Fund for the Environment, and the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters. Monique Bosch for WestportNow.com
Wakeman Farm Returns to Roots: Board of Finance makes recommendation to approve the lease for a Town Farm. By Liz Mitchell December 3, 2009
While the crops and cows changed over time at 134 Cross Highway, the Wakeman family had always used their property as farmland - at least from 1900 to 1970, the year they sold their farm to the town. Now, that property will once again return to its agricultural roots. The Board of Finance voted unanimously Wednesday to make a recommendation to the Board of Selectmen to approve a seven-year lease between the town and the nonprofit organization Green Village Initiative for $1 a year. The Board of Selectmen approved the lease last month, subject to the Board of Finance's recommendations. GVI wants to revive farming practices at the Wakeman property by transforming it into a Town Farm that can be used to both grow crops and teach residents about sustainable living. The group plans to pay for renovations to the vacant farmhouse and hire a farmer to live on the property to grow the crops, which can either be sold at local Farmers Markets, used as teaching demonstrations or both. More than 80 people attended the board meeting Wednesday, many of whom were students and other supporters of the farm concept. Fourth-grader Charlie Colasurdo, a student at King's Highway Elementary who recently spoke to his class about the importance of local farming, was the first to speak during public comment and urged the board to approve the lease. "Westport used to be known as an agricultural community, now there's only a few farms left," he said. "If we don't take this opportunity to turn Wakeman farm back into what it was meant to be, what will it become? Another big house? We have enough of those around. What we need is an educational farm to remind kids like me and my brother that you don't have to live out in the country to grow your own produce."
Wakeman welcomes new tenants By Monique Bosch Westport News, 12/31/2009 The recently approved Wakeman Farm on Cross Highway will welcome its first tenants since Pearl Wakeman, the last remaining member of the Wakeman family, occupied the house until her death in April of this year. On Dec. 2, Westport's Board of Finance gave unanimous approval to the Board of Selectmen's recommendation to lease the Wakeman farmhouse and grounds to Westport GVI Town Farm Inc., an independent non-profit organization in town. The idea behind the farm lease is to create a homestead and then utilize the 2.2-acre parcel as a teaching farm for the people of Westport. Raised garden beds will be used to teach how to plant, grow, harvest and preserve food. Staples Environmental Science Teacher -- and Westport's Teacher of the Year -- Michael Aitkenhead and his family will take up residence in the farmhouse. In addition to starting gardens to grow their own food, Michael will be responsible for organizing and coordinating events and learning opportunities for students and adults alike. Michael's wife Carrie will run the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program and oversee after-school programs. Their 18-month-old son Ethan will join his parents on the property, getting an early lesson on living on an actual working farm. The entire family is looking forward to this new venture, according to Michael. "We are so excited. This really changes our entire life and as an environmental teacher I feel that I can actually show my students how to live green instead of just talking about it," he said. "The purpose of Wakeman farm is to prove that anyone and everyone can grow their own food here -- all that is needed is the willingness and enthusiasm to try. Westport actually started out as a thriving farming community so many of its residents are sitting on prime agricultural land. The 2-acre zoning in most of Westport is ideal for families to have their own "homestead," complete with raised vegetable beds, fruit trees, even chickens. This demonstration garden will be the teaching ground to move towards a lifestyle that is more sustainable, healthy and natural. The idea of families growing their own food is taking hold throughout the country. Sometimes called "the 100-mile diet," "locavore movement," "slow food" or "turning a lawn into lunch," the basic principle is the same: moving away from industrial food towards locally grown natural foods that are sustainable, healthy and environmentally friendly. Westport's selectman office was instrumental in preserving Wakeman Farm, seeing the importance of maintaining farmland in an area that has seen most farmland disappear under housing developments. According to Second Selectman Shelly Kassen, "Gordon and I are dedicated to encouraging the production and consumption of 'local food' -- from the Westport Farmers Market, to the edible schoolyard and community garden, to the Wakeman Farm -- we are encouraged by the growing excitement for these initiatives. Saving Wakeman as a farm is the right thing to do on a number of levels, not the least of which is promoting local food."
Westport Greening Initiatives Take Root Many are working to carry the momentum to make Westport a model green town. By Nancy Burton November 29, 2009 Seeds of change are sprouting in Westport. Staples Culinary Arts students are tending, chopping, cooking and then chewing on produce they’ve grown on school grounds. Dry cleaning shops are trumpeting their "organic" processes that reduce toxic chemical use and provide customers with clean and odor-free clothing. Go-green cognoscenti are formulating plans for a pesticide ban in an effort to protect groundwater and the Long Island Sound. Residents are taking the "Green Pledge" to reduce their carbon footprints by switching to compact fluorescent bulbs, hanging laundry on the clothesline and taking fewer road trips. And, plans are underway to plow the yard of Wakeman Farm on Cross Highway and raise organic vegetables there for sale to the community. These and other initiatives are under way to improve the environment and encourage a go-green way of life. The town's Green Task Force says that's important when each Westport resident adds 18 tons of greenhouse gases per year into the atmosphere, according to an energy audit the group conducted last year. Multiply that number by the population in town — 26,000 — and you have a whopping 468,000 tons of greenhouse gases Westport adds to global warming annually, according to the energy audit. Westport wants to be the model green town, according to First Selectman Gordon Joseloff, who plans to continue pursuing such initiatives that he says have put Westport on the green radar screen.
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