The place at the end of the bumpy dirt road looks and sounds like many farms in rural Chatham County. Dogs bark and a rooster crows when visitors arrive. Glossy black-feathered chickens peck in the grass around the coop and a collection of outbuildings. A few people in shorts and T-shirts dig up beets and turnips in a half-acre garden plot.
But the writing carved into the wooden sign above the garden gate shows the difference at the Farm at Penny Lane: “Hope Grows Here.”
“We want the farm to be a place where we create initiatives and demonstrate that they are effective and can change people’s lives,” said Thava Mahadevan, director of the Farm at Penny Lane and of operations at the UNC Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health, part of the School of Medicine.
The center, in partnership with the nonprofit XDS Inc., operates the 40-acre property just six miles south of campus to provide services to approximately 2,000 people in the Triangle area with serious mental health conditions, addictive disorders or intellectual and developmental disabilities. The farm’s innovative programs include harvesting and processing produce, horticultural therapy, a farmer-led gardening group, yoga, cooking classes and a program for training support dogs.
Established in 2011, the farm provides services that Mahadevan said these clients can’t get at traditional hospitals and clinics. Therapy and medicine are important for the mentally ill, but they only address about 30% of their health and quality of life issues, he said. The Farm at Penny Lane provides the rest: exercise, a good diet, social interaction, work and life skills, accomplishment and an opportunity to improve their confidence and self-sufficiency.
| UNC-CH