Steven Finley graduated from Dickinson in 2015 with a BS in Biology. Steven began working on the farm half time (10hrs/week) in the course of the second semester of my junior 12 months and continued working half time via my complete senior 12 months. I then had the chance to take a full-time apprenticeship on the farm after my commencement for the 2015 rising season and at last departed after some winter work in early 2016. He had quite a lot of shut pals that labored on the farm and lots of of my biology courses met on the farm for labs and/or analysis. His pals all spoke extremely of their time on the farm, and his personal experiences there for courses have been very attention-grabbing. This all led to him making use of for a scholar farmer place there in 2014.
After Steven graduated in Could 2015 he labored full-time as an apprentice on the farm for the 2015 season. Since then, he has remained concerned within the meals/ag sector. Steven has labored at a number of completely different diversified vegetable farms in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, each in industrial and non-profit settings. For a pair years he stepped except for rising meals and as an alternative joined a non-profit starvation reduction group within the Boston space, the place he labored alongside native growers to reap, pack, and distribute native gleaned produce to the group. At the moment he has returned to rising greens full-time in Weston, Massachusetts as part of Land’s Sake, a non-profit organized round environmental training, meals donation, and land administration. Working on the Dickinson Farm was great as a result of it gave him so many alternatives to be taught, try, and apply new abilities in a protected and supportive environment that might be laborious to duplicate within the farming world. Steven is grateful to Matt, Jenn, Kevin and others for his or her persistence and steerage, which have helped him pursue additional farming and land administration careers. There’s additionally an unbelievable community of Dickinson growers on the market.
The subsequent step is at all times to continue learning and looking for recommendation and inspiration from the superb group of people that select to develop and share and put together meals. When Steven will not be farming, he actually enjoys using his bike alongside a few of the extra rural roads simply west of Boston. He additionally has taken up cribbage and he actually is wanting ahead to the day that he can bear in mind all the foundations. One in all his favourite Dickinson Faculty Farm recollections is he at all times reminisced fondly about residing within the yurts on the farm and constructing a hearth within the furnace forward of chilly autumn evenings. There’s one thing so particular about residing, sleeping, and strolling on the land that you simply are likely to.
