The Croft

I wanted to share with you another volunteer opportunity I've had.

Two days last week, I volunteered at "The Croft."  The Croft is an organic farm - a working farm.  In addition to raising cows, sheep, chickens, etc, they rent out land on the farm to others farmers, so there is also a vegetable garden and an orchard.  They do normal farm stuff: raising fruits, vegetables, and meat to sell at a number of markets.  On top of this, though, they have tour groups come - 360 groups/year, so almost every single day.  Some groups are adults with disabilities or school groups, as well as some others.  Some groups tour the farm or do certain activities.  Some tour the farm and then cook a meal with ingredients from the farm.  School groups often tour the farm and then eat lunch, which is made with farm ingredients, but cooked before they come, not by the students.  The room where the students eat has a little kitchen.  And since it's an organic farm and they have these groups nearly daily, they don't use anything that's disposable.  So there's a lot of dishes in a small kitchen.  Very few people in the UK have a dishwasher, so everything is done by hand.  I was asked to help out on two different days when they were having school classes of 7-8 year olds.  I helped with crowd control during the tour of the farm and then with set up, serving, and clean up for the meal (20-25 students plus chaperones - it ends up being about 30 people being fed out of a small kitchen).

I very much enjoyed my time at The Croft.  I worked with two other young women, both of whom were very kind and lovely to spend time with.  It was a nice change of pace from my usual data entry to get outside, move around, and interact with children.

I may yet do another couple of days volunteering at The Croft before our time in the UK comes to a close - it will depend on if they need an extra set of hands before late November.