Garfield Community Farm

10/25/2026

Seeking: Old pots, pans, kitchen utensils, a broom, buckets, small shovels, and similar outdoor toys!

Yesterday, during a multi-hour play session at our site, our nature-based playspace was a kitchen, a bedroom, a worksite, and an art studio. Natural materials like leaves and sticks and woodchips and mud were combined with manmade materials like buckets and pots and pans and paint brushes to create imaginative magic for hours.

Lightly-supervised, free play in natural spaces supports positive development in youth!! These environments encourage youth to really “settle in” to their play, resulting in longer, more sustained play.

To foster this sort of play, we like to have an array of manmade materials on hand (the natural materials are always there 🌿🍂). Perhaps you have something lying around that you could drop off at our space? Consider rehoming them at our site! A broom, a truck, pots and pans, kitchen utensils like a whisk or wooden spoon. Any items are welcome!

Feel free to just drop off in the big blue toy bin that’s in the nature-based play space.

10/24/2026

We unfortunately need to cancel this event. Apologies for the short notice!! We’ll let you know when it’s rescheduled.

10/22/2026

Check out this class on food forests at Phipps Conservatory that I'm teaching this Monday. There's still room for more participants.

Explore Holistic Orchard Care with John Creasy, founding director of Garfield Community Farm. Learn about growing and maintaining fruit and other perennial food plants in a holistic way that looks at soil health, plant selection and of course fall plant care and pruning. Discover what is possible to...

10/21/2026

For our Nutrition Curriculum, we intentionally focus on and use ingredients that are easily found in any local grocery store. The one exception to this: Sugarcane!!

This sugarcane came all the way from a store in Cincinnati via a GCF supporter to use in our lesson on sugar. Sugarcane and sugar beets account for the majority of sugar produced domestically. Having sugarcane in its raw form provides a great visual for talking to youth about raw sugar vs refined sugar.

10/19/2026

Eagle Scout project completed!! A huge thanks to Andrew Kronenbitter for choosing to invest in GCF through his Eagle Scout project this year.

The goal for this project was to increase accessibility. By putting in the retaining wall, we are able to extend the walking path behind the large concrete table in our peace labyrinth space. This will allow us to utilize both sides of the table and not block off the main footpath during events.

Andrew and his team exceeded the hopes for this project by not only increasing accessibility, but greatly beautifying the hillside as well with the installation of the wrought iron rail. We will prep the space behind the rail on the hillside this fall and plant it out with natives in early spring.

Appreciation also goes to Ross Kronenbitter, John of Iron Eden, and all the other volunteers who supported this project.

10/16/2026

Yesterday evening, we hosted our annual Volunteer Appreciation Event. This is one of our favorite times of the year! Why? Because the folks who volunteer with us—whether one time or many—are true partners in our mission and vision.

Volunteers have come alongside us in so many ways throughout our 17 years. From picking up coffee grounds to caring for our animals to event planing to hauling rocks to…you name it! The folks who attend our open volunteer hours on Thursday evenings never know what we are going to ask them to do and yet are always willing to dive right in.

For the past handful of years, we have averaged around 45 hrs/wk of donated labor. As a small nonprofit with ONLY part-time staff, this donated labor is a game changer and increases our capacity in multi-fold ways, too many ways to account for here. In short, GCF would not be the incredible organization it is today without the faithful dedication of so many volunteers.

To anyone who has ever volunteered with us—THANK YOU!! You uplifted our organization and the beloved community that we serve.

10/13/2026

Cooking with kids is the best kind of chaotic fun 🍳

Cooking together is an essential component of our Nutrition Curriculum. During this curriculum, we go through each of the following food groups: grains, proteins, vegetables & fruits, sugar, and fats. Each food group gets its own lesson and then the youth get to choose a recipe to make the following week that features that food group.

We learn a lot, cook up delicious eats, and create a whole lot of mess. So appreciative of Brothers And Sisters Emerging for letting us use their space and kitchen!!

10/08/2026

Snapshots from volunteer night tonight

10/06/2026

We’re still buzzing with joy and gratitude for your support last week at our 8th Annual Fall Fundraiser. We’re so grateful to the sponsors, donors, and attendees who helped us raise an amazing $23k! 

The money we raised last week provides the flexible dollars we need to buy extras for our food pantry, replace a crop that didn’t produce, provide a Garfield teen with a summer job, host free community events and workshops, provide our staff with healthcare stipends, and so much more through our agricultural, educational, and ecological restoration programming. 

Thank you for trusting us and being our partners in this critical work! 

If you couldn’t make it and still want to support our work, click the link in our bio to donate or join us at open volunteer hours on Thursdays from 5:30pm to dusk (through October 29).

10/01/2026

NO open volunteers hours tonight. But don’t be sad!! You can still hang out with us at our Fall Fundraiser 😊

Start time: 7pm
Location: Tree Pittsburgh’s Headquarters

Good vibes, great raffle items, beautiful location, delicious food, live music.

Grab your tickets now. Link for tickets in bio and on our website. Meal and drinks included in ticket price.