Jessica Cherry
Founder, ReImagining the Workplace
Host of the ReImagination Café podcast
What’s New at the ReImagination Café™
Dear visitors to the ReImagination Café™,
Earlier this year, I interviewed Kristen Powers, Executive Director of Benevolence Farm, which provides transitional housing, employment, and wraparound services to women and gender-expansive people exiting incarceration in North Carolina. Residents working at the farm benefit from being in nature—where they can slow down, heal, and have their basic needs met. You can find that interview here.
A few months later, I met Kate Mudge, Co-Director of the Care Farming Network, and learned that Benevolence Farm is one of hundreds of "care farms" across the U.S., each using therapeutic farming to promote health, well-being, and belonging.
I discovered that no two care farms are alike. While rooted in farming, they're customized to meet the needs of the people and communities they serve, offering reciprocal benefits—to participants (often members of marginalized or overlooked groups) and to local communities, through organic vegetables, care for rescued animals, green spaces, and safe havens. The Care Farming Network brings care farmers together to share resources and support each other.
In a world obsessed with scale and mega-mergers, care farms remind us that bigger isn't always better—that sometimes the most powerful change comes from small, unique places tailored to the people and communities they serve.
Working on this episode had a profound impact on me. It took me back to simpler times—day camp, playing in the mud, skinny-dipping in the lake, scavenger hunts. I spent my early years being active outdoors, with unstructured time to slow down, explore, and take in the world.
Fast forward fifty years - life seems to be moving at lightning speed. I'm inside most of the time, sitting at my desk. Unstructured time is rare. Too many conversations happen through a screen.
Maybe it's time to slow down, step outside, and engage more fully with the world - trade some Zoom calls for walks in the woods.
And maybe the next time I find myself standing in the mud, I'll take my shoes off.
Care to join me?
A huge thank you to Kate Mudge, Woody Woodroof, Shawn Hayden, Adam and Lacey Ingrao, and Charley Schwartz for sharing their knowledge, passion, and wisdom—and for reminding us of the power of nature and community to heal and connect us.
Reimagining always,
Jessica Cherry
Check out our latest episode “Cultivating Change: The Transformative Power of Care Farming,“ which features:
Full Episode: Cultivating Change: The Transformative Power of Care Farming
Supplemental Tracks
Adam & Lacey Ingrao Supplemental Track
In this special supplement to Episode 14: Cultivating Change: The Transformative Power of Care Farming, Jessica speaks with Lacey and Adam Ingrao of Bee Wise Farms in Michigan, where beekeeping and mindfulness come together to support wellness and community—particularly with veterans and their families. Portions of this conversation appear in the full episode; this track features the complete, largely unedited interview.
From the role of honey bees in our food system to apitherapy traditions in Slovenia and their research-backed practices with the VA, Lacey and Adam share how bees can calm the nervous system, deepen presence, and bring families and communities closer.
In this supplemental conversation, you’ll hear:
An overview of Bee Wise Farms: honey, lavender, wellness, and apitherapy (sound, air, and venom therapies).
How sensory-rich beekeeping cultivates mindfulness—and why it’s counterintuitively calming.
Global roots: beehouses and apitherapy traditions that inspired their work.
The Bee Calm Bee Well program with the VA (10 practices; research showing 30% drops in anxiety/depression).
Veterans and family connection: why learning together in the apiary opens the door to honest conversations.
Accessibility in the apiary: hive designs and adaptive setups that make beekeeping possible for more people.
Why joining the Care Farming Network matters for sharing methods, resources, and momentum.
Shawn Hayden Supplemental Track
In this special supplement to Episode 14: Cultivating Change: The Transformative Power of Care Farming, Jessica sits down with Shawn Hayden, CEO of GAAMHA, to explore how a “happy accident” grew into a licensed care‑farming treatment program. Portions of this conversation appear in the full episode; this track features the complete, largely unedited interview.
Shawn shares his path from entering GAAMHA’s Pathway House for treatment in 2009 to becoming CEO in 2024—and how that recovery journey shapes every decision he makes today. He explains the model at the Carl E. Dahl House at Evergreen Grove—a 16‑bed, residential program that weaves daily animal care and equine‑assisted learning into clinical treatment—and why purpose, dignity, and nonjudgmental relationships with animals can change the arc of recovery.
In this supplemental conversation, you’ll hear:
The program’s origin story—and why “accidental” insights stuck.
What care farming adds on day one (identity, purpose, belonging).
A powerful transformation story - and the community that rallied around one of its own.
Early outcomes and research (higher completion, longer stays—and even healthier goats).
Why the Care Farming Network matters for sharing practices and momentum.
