The Wendell Berry Farming Program of Sterling College is partnering with The Berry Center and Kentucky Master Woodland Steward Tom Grissom to host a restorative forestry field day on Saturday, February 2 from 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. at Drennon Woods Farm: 723 Barton Lane (off the Point Pleasant Rd.), Pleasureville, KY, 40057. This free draft horse logging demonstration is a part of the WBFP’s restorative forestry short course. The event will be led by WBFP students as well as by renowned biological foresters Jason Rutledge (of Virginia’s Healing Harvest Forest Foundation), Kentucky horse logger Ben Burgess, and Rick Thomas, Sterling College sustainable agriculture faculty and draft animal educator. This open house event will highlight low-impact logging tactics and techniques by harvesting red cedars to regenerate and thin mixed, uneven-aged hardwoods on abandoned subsistence farm lands. Additional details and RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/events/2180501435346560/
Prospective applicants to the no-tuition, undergraduate Wendell Berry Farming Program of Sterling College are encouraged to attend this open house. For WBFP enrollment information, please contact Admissions at (802) 586-7711, extension 100, or [email protected].
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STERLING COLLEGE Founded in 1958 in Craftsbury Common, Vermont, Sterling College is the leading voice in higher education for environmental stewardship and rural place-based education. The College was among the first in the United States to focus on the human relationship in the natural world through majors in Ecology, Environmental Humanities, Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems, and Outdoor Education. Enrolling 120 undergraduate and 200 continuing education students, Sterling is home to the School of the New American Farmstead, the Wendell Berry Farming Program, is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education, and is one of only nine federally recognized Work Colleges in the nation. THE BERRY CENTER The Berry Center is putting Wendell Berry’s writings to work by advocating for farmers, land-conserving communities, and healthy regional economies. Their work seeks to provide solutions to essential issues that are rarely in public discourse and certainly are not reflected in agricultural policies. “What will it take for farmers to be able to afford to farm well?” and “How do we become a culture that supports good farming and land use?” They believe that the answers—while firmly rooted in local work—are central to solving some of the world’s most pressing problems including the devastation of natural resources and biodiversity; rapid onset of climate change; economic and social inequities; and the collapse of healthy farming and rural communities.
MEDIA CONTACTS
Katie Lavin, Director of Media Relations, Sterling College (802) 586-7711 x120 • [email protected]
Ben Aguilar, Director of Operations, The Berry Center (502) 845-9200 • [email protected]
Note for prospective Wendell Berry Farming Program of Sterling College applicants: With the news of a recent grant from the NoVo Foundation, the College is seeking authorization from its accreditor, the New England Commission of Higher Education, to establish a new instructional site in Kentucky and is working with the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education for licensure to offer the program in Kentucky. Updates on this process will be posted at www.sterlingcollege.edu.
