For Alphonse Ntibandetse, Hurricane Valley Farm – the 62-acre farm off of Route 100 in Falmouth – is more than just a place he comes once a week to tend his vegetables.
“We are interacting between us, because many people are speaking the same languages, (like) French or Swahili,” explained Ntibandetse, who is originally from Burundi and for nearly five years has taken part in Cultivating Community, which offers new Mainers garden space for a small plot fee at the Hurricane Valley Farm. It currently serves over 50 families.
The farm has an old barn – estimated to be more than 100 years old – that is in need of repair and is essential for growers using the farm. Ntibandetse stores tools, like his garden hoe, in the barn. Another grower, Amos Kazadi, also stores his equipment in the barn.
Thanks to a fundraising campaign that kicked off in 2022, the Falmouth Land Trust and Cultivating Community have raised nearly $350,000 to give the barn a facelift. Major contributions have come from places like Norway Savings Bank, Bath Savings and Maine Beer Co.
To raise the final $20,000, the two organizations are hosting Barn Fest, family-friendly celebration at Hurricane Valley Farm itself (459 Gray Road) on Sunday, Oct. 6 from 3-7 p.m.
The event entrance is free and will feature local food trucks, live music, adult beverages from Vacationland Distributors, a bonfire, and the Common Roots Studio Mobile Art Bus. The band Back Woods Road is on tap to perform.
There have already been two Barn Fests, and this will be the third and final installment, according to Falmouth Land Trust Executive Director Mila Plavsic. The Falmouth Land Trust has owned the farm since 2015.
The barn needs new siding, power posts, doors and windows in order to keep the structure watertight, according to a press release. Work on the barn has already begun. “Without these interventions, the barn will continue to deteriorate so we are making a concerted effort now to save the barn,” said Michael Vance, board president of the Falmouth Land Trust, according to the release.
These upgrades will allow Cultivating Community to “expand their programming and use the barn more fully, even more than they do now,” according to Plavsic.
This year Barn Fest will take place closer to the barn itself, so that festival goers (there were about 250 last year) can see the progress that’s already underway.
“This year is more of a celebration of having some of the work recently completed. There’s a new roof, and hopefully by the time of Barn Fest, there’ll be some new clapboard siding,” she said.
Hurricane Valley Farm also got another recent upgrade: a new 20-panel, ground-mount solar array that will offset the farm’s power usage and make sure their operations are more resilient to extreme weather.
The array was made possible through a $50,000 Community Resilience Partnership Grant through the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future.
Amos Kazadi is a grower who cultivates African spinach, green eggplant and amaranth, and sells his product to places like the African Super Market on Washington Ave in Portland, he said.
Kazadi, who is originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and these days lives in Portland, said that he’s excited for the barn to be fully restored because that would mean more storage space for his produce, and would allow him to store more vegetables so he can sell more in the non-growing season.
Looking to the future, Cultivating Community is considering using the barn to raise goats, according to Plavsic, who said that that would require the barn to be modified even further.
Kazadi is in favor of the idea. “In the community, we’re eating a lot of goat … people love it, but they go far away to buy it.” He thinks raising and selling the goat to new Mainers would be a good financial venture, noting there would be plenty of demand.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.