Thank you Jericho Road!

Jericho Road has been a great addition to the Worcester community. At Dismas, when we launched our new Dismas Family Farm project, we set an agenda which included a goal of generating revenue from farm product sales, as a new way of powering the program financially. We assembled a great team including local churches, staff, and volunteers to push this project forward. Everyone we talked to seemed to have an idea they wanted to share on how to generate a profit, from starting a petting zoo and dog kennel, to housing horses and starting a Community supported agriculture model of farm. Luckily, Jericho Road helped provide some excellent advice by the way of short term committed volunteers who brought some diverse expertise to the table, and merged our efforts and ideas with practicable advice earned in the private sector. One volunteer helped create a blueprint for farm revenue that included experimenting with some crafts such as candles, wood products, soaps, and cheese. She worked with the farm manager on a herd-management idea to focus energy on reducing type of sheep for lamb production and wool. Another volunteer brought regular marketing expertise to the table at our regular meetings, helping to close the loop on what was practicable for this project. And finally, a craftsman helped Dismas staff experiment with several on-going ideas on what products could make the woodshop run by ex-offenders a success, including expanded birdhouse options, decorative tomato stakes, wood window planters, and toys for the holiday season. We have appreciated the committement of these volunteers in the sense that they helped to craft a direction for the profitability of the farm for Dismas.