36-Hour Sukkot Fundraiser

Team fundraiser

Sadeh Farm and Talia Chain are organizing this fundraiser to benefit Sadeh.

This Sukkot, we are fundraising together to maintain, enrich, and expand our activities and programmes. Reaching our goal will allow us to pay staff to run our programmes and farm, pay our bills, provide access to people who cannot afford to come here, and increase access to nature for those who have been excluded.

If you don’t know us already, we are Sadeh Farm, located in Kent on a rich site that has been in Jewish care since the 40s. Since 2018, Sadeh has been offering immersive Jewish environmental education programming, a food-growing apprenticeship, community volunteer days, family days, retreats, and holiday observations. Beyond education, our work focuses on regenerative land practices, cross communal engagement, and local and interfaith community building.

We are only running this fundraiser for 36 hours, until the morning of Tuesday, 3 October, so please donate and share with your people now! Follow along with our progress on Instagram where we’ll be posting content throughout the fundraiser.

What we will spend your sweet abundant cash on this 5784:

£500 Community-facilitator-run programme

£1,000 Improving Volunteer Kitchen

£5,000 Subsidised retreats for community members and groups excluded from land

£10,000 Polytunnel classroom*

£12,000 Subsidised coaches for school group visits

£15,000 Monthly community Friday nights and regular volunteer days

£25,000 Food growing, land stewardship, biodiversity and conservation work

*Polytunnel Classroom

An indoor learning space inside a massive polytunnel means accessible, weatherproof, hands-on learning. Being able to offer year-round education would transform our ability to host the demand we have for gathering, and allow us to offer our space to external educators. We’d also be able to experiment with plants we can’t grow outside in anticipation of climate changes and to provide culturally relevant and interesting foods for eating and education. Expenses for the polytunnel project would include solar panels, gardening tools, tables and chairs, a rainwater collection system, and materials for bed construction.

Extra Bonus if we can cover the above:

Our treasured tractor has had an incredible tenure carving beautiful paths and giving rides through Sadeh’s meadows over the years. The grass has included some sharp obstacles that over time have damaged the tractor, and now we’ve got to fix it. The repair will include a very special, very expensive part and a fitting to get running again.

Last year’s fundraising campaign allowed us to:

Welcome over 200 adults and 500 children at community volunteer days, holidays, away days, and retreats.
Hire a Fellowship Coordinator! Talia Reed is already in the swing of orchestrating a third Fellowship this year filled with bird-monitoring, climate protests, and holidays for thirteen immersed Fellows.
Get former Fellow Sarah back as an Apprentice! Along with working with Head Food Grower Reu on the land and bringing animal welfare knowledge to the team, Sarah is helping out with the on-site Forest School and other education.
Conduct interviews and a survey on accessibility at Sadeh and implement changes on the farm to help people excluded from green and Jewish spaces due to disabilities and ableism, including the launch of the Sadeh Community Rideshare Board for volunteer days.
Participate in an exhibit at the Jewish Museum in London, feature on BBC Sounds with Vanessa Feltz, and give insights for a CAMRAs book on women in fermenting.
Home 10 new rescue hens from the British Hen Welfare Trust
Host writers-in-residence: Niellah who is working on race and climate justice projects, and Tomer, who came and led a session on his novel about Birobidzhan.

Things are bustling around here. We just won a prize for Best Potato at the Crockenhill Harvest Fayre, and welcomed in four new Fellows for fall. We’ve got a community volunteer day coming up tomorrow, and on the weekend we’re hosting a Team Away Day for an environmental charity. We’ve got Bmitzvah groups and synagogues coming through day trips, and before you know it, it will be Kislev, and we’ll be hosting a retreat with the legendary Batya Levine, taking us all the way into winter. Money goes a very long way with us. Keep up with us on Instagram and sign up for our newsletter.

Join us in the Zoom Sukkah on Monday, 2nd of October at 18:00 to learn some Mishnah Sukkah with us (bring paper and drawing materials!)

Thank you for helping us meet demand for Jewish agricultural education this 5784.

We take offline donations! Email us to be included <3

From the Sukkah,

The Sadeh Team