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,