Cultivating Community at Sadeh
This Sukkot, we are fundraising to cultivate and deepen Jewish earth-based community in the UK. Reaching our goal of £36,000 will allow us to provide deep-rooted connections to land and nature through land-work, texts, traditions and, the Sadeh, itself. With your help, we can enrich and expand our activities connecting people to Sadeh throughout the seasons.
If you don’t know us already, we are Sadeh Farm, located in Kent on a rich 7-acre site that has been in Jewish care and custodianship for over 80 years. Since 2018, Sadeh has continued this legacy offering immersive Jewish outdoor education, fellowship programmes, apprenticeships, community volunteer days, family days, Friday night dinners, retreats and holiday celebrations. A broad cross section of the Jewish community, from many different cultural backgrounds and approaches to Jewish tradition, seek out Sadeh’s activities. This is because facilitating a hopeful, optimistic and connected vision of Jewish community has become central to Sadeh’s land-focused ethos.
Founding figure in the UK’s organic farming movement, Lady Evelyn says community requires that “we extend the concept…to include all the species of life with which we share the planet”. Our beneficiaries, beyond the Jewish and local communities therefore also include the local butterfly populations we increase, new trees planted, the thriving bee and other pollinator populations and our improved soil health.
Our work focuses on crucial regenerative land practices. Sadeh improves its biodiversity in plants, animals and soil while growing food and plants through agroecological principles prioritising La Via Campesina’s definition “The land does not belong to us; we belong to the land.” The rewilding plans have included planting hedgerows, 900 woodland trees, creating meadows, living fences and new ponds.
We're so lucky to be able to offer Sadeh to people for away days, retreats, weddings and other beautiful occasions and are excited to raise money so we can keep doing that in the year to come.
We are only running this fundraiser until October 27th, so please donate and share now! Follow along with our progress on Instagram where we’ll be posting content throughout the fundraiser.
Sukkot is one of our central harvest festivals and is the time we ask for your support. During Sukkot, we wave four plant species, a physical reminder of our harvest and at Sadeh we bring in the last of the harvest to eat in the Sukkah or to preserve. This year mainly squash, pumpkins and beetroot - the Chrayne was made this sunday and we plan to eat it for Pesach. We sit in our delicate, temporary structures under a canopy of plants we have been clearing while preparing for winter and recognise how the ecology that binds us is so fragile.
Just as when we step into a forest, we notice the trees and their beautiful crowns, our participants and community members see the crowns of Sadeh’s work and enjoy the abundance of Sadeh’s fruiting bodies. This includes the veg garden, the fellowship programme, community days, Friday night meals, workshops, retreats and more. However, this fundraiser, we ask you to consider what lies below the soil, leaves, and moss that carpet the ground; The intertwined, magical network of mycelium. Your financial support allows us to send resources through our own mycelium network to the parts of our organisation that are so essential for the fruiting output of Sadeh such as staff members, utility bills, accessibility subsidies and more.
The essential mycelium network we will spend your sweet donations on this 5785:
Open days and community meals
- It’s likely that you’ve joined us for a volunteer day or dinner at some point, which while free to all, takes resources to run!
- For access, we think it’s crucial to subsidise rides, which are organised cabs to and from the station for people who request them to be able to come to Sadeh.
Lilinaz
- Lilinaz Evans, our Head of Education, is our plastered cistern that never leaks. She has brought us so much Torah and delight in the last few months and has orchestrated two incredible Fellowship programmes.
Reu
- Reu Refson-Dye, our Head Food Grower, keeps us nourished year-round and the pond garden filled with lavish grasses. They teach Fellows the essentials of no-dig gardening and regenerative land practices, lead apprenticeships and make sure we eat our heritage vegetables.
Utilities
- Running water, lights, hot water in the volunteer kitchen and rubbish collection
- Did you know that our house is insulated with horse hair and that the cost of utilities in the UK has skyrocketed for everyone?
Subsidised retreats
- We want to continue welcoming people to Sadeh who have restricted access to land and nature and are doing essential work organising around climate justice
The Fellowship Programme
- Sadeh’s statement programming is the Fellowship, which for the last four years has offered long-term residence and immersive education on-site to future Jewish environmental leaders.
By donating, you are purchasing the future of Jewish life!
Last year’s fundraising campaign allowed us to:
- Pay community facilitators to run educational and celebratory programming at Sadeh, from Klezmer-fueled dinners and many seders to craft afternoons and Shabbat services.
- Speak at our local council, at the LSE Youth Interfaith Summit, farming panels, and host a booth at our local harvest fayre.
- Install a massive, 18-meter polytunnel, to be used as an indoor learning space that is accessible and weather-proof - we’re excited to host you in this in 5785!
- Subsidise retreats for community members and groups excluded from land and nature
- Run free events at Sadeh like regular volunteer days and monthly community Friday night dinners
- Host 12 Fellows for three seasonal programmes where they studied Mishnah, learned to identify birds, composted, sang, and honed their skills to be leaders beyond Sadeh
- Carry on food growing, and giving free nutritious food to our communities, land stewardship, biodiversity and conservation work
Things are bustling around here. We have 7 new fellows for Sukkot who are going to be putting up the Sukkah, gathering their lulavs, singing, learning about mushrooms and working on the land for the next two weeks. We’d love to see you at our upcoming community Friday night dinner (Oct 18) and Sukkot volunteer day (Oct 20). We have several artists and writers staying with us this winter who will be putting on events, plus hosting away days and youth retreats to come. Money goes a very long way with us.
Keep up with us on Instagram and sign up for our newsletter. Thank you for helping us meet the demand for Jewish agricultural education this 5785.
We take offline donations! Email us to be included <3
From the Sukkah,
The Sadeh Team
Testimonials
“Thank you so much for hosting and running the tour for BRS Chai School in June - a wonderful and highly memorable morning of cheder family learning and togetherness. I think you pitched the session so well at our mixed aged group, and loved the way you focused on Jewish values such as Tza'ar ba'alei chayim and bal tashchit. The bouquet collecting was such a lovely activity to end our wonderful countryside morning.” -Bromley Reform Synagogue
"Sadeh farm is a beautiful community, and we enjoyed our stay there very much. We planted about 1000 trees as part of a hedgerow feeding into their rewilding and biodiversity efforts. We pray that many people will come after us and help keep this lovely place alive and well." -St.Ethelburga's Center for Peace and Reconciliation
“Sadeh provided the perfect venue for our writing retreat. The six writers we assembled felt relaxed welcomed on the beautiful grounds and inspired by the people and projects at Sadeh. Among the things I appreciated most was the unique spirit of Sadeh as a land-based community, a spirit which bubbles up from the place and is at once purposeful and laid back, creative and practical, visionary and earthy. During our time at Sadeh, the assembled writers could drink in its nourishment to enrich our imaginative adventures, and I daresay we benefited a great deal. We’d gladly return!”
“That was SO peaceful” -Josh, age 9
Fundraising team (2)
Sadeh Farm
Organizer
England
Sadeh
Beneficiary
Talia Chain
Team member