Volunteer Day at the New Leaf Farm

This week a few of our team members had the opportunity to get outside & get their hands dirty along with the team at New Leaf Agriculture — an organic farm started by the Multicultural Refugee Coalition that employs refugees living in the Austin area. We strapped on our boots and headed out to their farm in Elgin on Wednesday morning, where we were greeted with a truckload of 200 chickens being moved to a new part of the farm — supporting a practice called regenerative agriculture which not only “does no harm” to the land but actually improves it, using technologies that regenerate and revitalize the soil and the environment.

We, however, were not on chicken duty. We were tasked with planting three long rows of garlic, which our backs weren’t too happy about the following day! If you asked us though, we would get out there way more often if we could. Learning to appreciate our food and all parts of the food system is something that most of us have lost in the modern world, and getting to be a small part of it again was a fantastic experience!

Despite the presence of our small office garden, the extent of agriculture chat at the Civilitude office is indeed quite limited. So it was a blast to hear a little bit about what it takes to grow our food in a healthy and sustainable way from people from across the globe who have been growing food for most of, if not all of, their lives! We are so grateful to the Multicultural Refugee Coalition and their team at the New Leaf Farm for allowing us to hang out and participate in their work. If you have a chance, make sure you get out there and check out the farm!