Activities
Community Service
Community service is a fundamental component of Longacre Leadership Program. The importance of service to the local community, the global community, and the earth becomes clearer to teens when they serve. Each participant receives a certificate in September enumerating their community service hours.
Local Service
There are dozens of ways teenagers can serve the local community at Longacre Leadership. Below is a sampling of the projects we do each summer.
Food Bank: Teens help pack food to be distributed to low-income families in Perry County.
“Play Day Fun Day”: Teens run this exciting event twice each summer at the Farm. Underprivileged youth from Head Start and the Migrant Education Program join us for farm tours, games, horseback rides, and a wonderful children's theater production.
Senior Citizens Home: Teens spend time chatting, playing games, doing crafts, and making connections with senior citizens. Their lively energy brings smiles to many faces, especially when they put on one of their comical drama productions in full costume!
Habitat for Humanity: Teens help build houses for low-income families in Newport, and learn incredible life-skills.
Global Service
Knit for Kids: Each summer a number of teenagers learn how to knit sweaters, which are sent to children in refugee camps around the world.
Monarch Butterfly Way Stations: Help maintain a viable habitat for the threatened monarch butterfly through Monarch Watch. Longacre Farm is an official way station for migrating monarchs.
Disaster Relief: This summer, we’ll be fundraising for disaster relief in Haiti.
Service to the Earth
Living on a farm gets teenagers closer to nature and its rhythms. That connection is further fueled by active stewardship. Service to the Earth at Longacre offers teenagers the opportunity to participate in the following local and national conservation and preservation initiatives.
American Chestnut Restoration: Participants can work towards the revival of the American chestnut. Longacre Farm is a member of The American Chestnut Foundation, and maintains a 150-tree chestnut orchard that includes “restoration chestnut” trees.
Bluebirds and Bats: Teens foster the protection of threatened species by building bluebird nesting boxes and bat houses to mount around the farm.
Environmental Education: Longacre participants teach environmental education classes to young children, some who are recent immigrants or children of migrant workers.
Recycling Centers: Students can volunteer at two recycling centers in our county, helping our neighbors dispose of their garbage in a more sustainable way.