Amid crises, Villa sisters harvest hope

By Jeanne Starmack | September 29, 2008 at 12:06a.m.

Have a hamburger made from organic beef and let the rhythm drum your cares away.

VILLA MARIA, Pa. — Under a deep blue sky, five people worked last week to pick about an acre of potatoes along a little country lane.

The rutty field, where antique tractors would help the workers gather about 500 bushels of potatoes, is a small part of the Villa Maria Community Center’s 200-acre farm, and it’s a sharp contrast to the manicured grounds of the center across the lane.

There, the grass is neat and lush, and a small pond invites contemplation.

A sign at the entrance to the center, which is also the mother house for an order of nuns called the Sisters of the Humility of Mary, urges visitors to “pray for peace and nonviolence.”

It would be easy to forget in that serene, 726-acre retreat that there is an outside world of war, poverty and climate troubles.

But the sisters don’t forget. The 60 who live there not only pray for peace, but pursue their mission to serve the poor in their own small part of that world and to care for their land.

Their farm grows a variety of vegetables and fruits for local food banks and churches that feed hungry people in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

The sisters have been working and sustaining the land since coming from France in 1864, said Frank Romeo, director of land management emeritus. So they were “green” long before “green” became a desperate trend born of a looming climate crisis and unaffordable fuel for cars and homes.

“There’s such a fine line — they need sustainability in the economic sense, but making money isn’t why they’re here,” said Juliane Arena, Villa Maria’s marketing director.

Fifty percent of what the farm grows is given to charity; 25 percent stays at the Villa; and 25 percent is sold in a store on the grounds, with proceeds going back into the farm, Arena said.

The Villa also raises money by selling timber from a 400-acre hardwood forest, which it carefully sustains by cutting in sections, said Romeo and John Moreira, the present director of land management.

The sisters are grateful for what the land gives them and for the people who have volunteered to help them with it — from that gratitude grew their Harvest Day Celebration, said Romeo, who has been with the sisters since he began tending their flower gardens as a child of 10 while his mother worked in the kitchen.

The festival is coming up Saturday, from noon to 5 p.m. at the center, and everyone is invited.

There’s no admission cost, but there will be food, produce, arts and crafts and fair-trade items for sale, including gifts, jewelry, coffees and teas.

If you buy something there, you will have also given back to the land and the community it helps to support. That’s because the festival, which began in 1999 as a simple celebration to honor six farm volunteers, has now become a community event and a fundraiser to help offset the costs of running the farm.

There were 400 people at Harvest Day last year, said Arena. This year, they’re hoping for at least 600.

“I guess they didn’t know how to say ‘no’ to how many people could come to dinner,” she joked.

That dinner will include organically raised beef from the Villa’s small herd of cattle, french fries and chips from Villa potatoes, and butternut squash soup from, of course, Villa squash.

Entertainment will include singers, banjo playing and a clown.

Activities will include nature walks and, for the truly stressed out, the soothing rhythm of a drumming circle.

“It’s family fun, but this harvest festival is different because of the spirituality, sustainability and true gratitude for the harvest and hard work,” Arena said.