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Edgemere Farm’s Fall Harvest Festival


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Grower Matthew Sheehan was present to teach guests the importance of outdoor composting. Photo by Vanessa Vasquez

The Harvest Festival was in full bloom at Edgemere Farm on Saturday, Oct. 28 where the fall spirit was alive and well.

Attendees were treated to great weather as they entered the farm for a day of fun alongside their families.

The festival’s schedule included a number of activities like a public screen printing class taught by the Rockaway Artists Alliance’s (RAA) screen printing instructor Jason Heuer, along with his wife Jianna Heuer and their screen printing assistant Julius Piper.

The RAA hopes that, in collaborating with Edgemere Farm, their available classes and events at Fort Tilden will reach a broader audience.

“This is part of our community outreach. We are doing this so people can bring their own shirts and print on them or purchase, for a small fee, one of our own, or give a donation. This is all part of getting out and getting the word out about the RAA,” Jason explained. “We just want to reach out to the community and get to parts that are underserved or less frequented to let them know there’s an art program on the other side of the peninsula and that it’s open for everyone to attend and take classes.

“The dual purpose of the studio is community outreach, to serve parts of the peninsula and also raise money for the program through adult classes and paid classes,” he continued.

The woman behind the festival is Edgemere Farm’s Grower Heidi Woolever, who ensures the farm remains a well-kept and productive community space.

“We had a clean-up on Beach Channel Drive [this morning] and we had several people come for that and filled up several garbage bags for sanitation to pick up,” said Woolever. “We are also having a potluck, face painting and pumpkin painting for kids by Angie, [as well as] a dance called ‘farm dance’ by Mikka. We are doing silk screening of the Edgemere Farm logo on T-shirts and we’ll have a pet costume contest taking place. We also have the regular, final farm stand going on too.

“I’d also like to say I’m super excited to be collaborating with the RAA,” Woolever added. “Hopefully it will be the first of many collaborations. I think there’s a lot of natural symbiosis with the artist alliance and the farm.”

Even with the jam-packed list of activities happening throughout the day, visitors of all ages enjoyed being surrounded by the lush urban farm land and fresh grown vegetables and flowers.

On Saturday, Nov. 18 a class will be taking place at the farm called “Intro to Outdoor Composting,” where guests can join the NYC Compost Project and the Queens Botanical Garden for an educational lesson on composting – a useful session for peninsula residents given the recent addition of the Department of Sanitation’s Organics Collection Program to Rockaway. All in the community are invited to stop by.

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