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HISTORY
Bittersweet
Farms, opened in 1983, stands as a model for farm communities
for autism in the US and abroad. The program, twenty miles
southwest of Toledo, Ohio, has continued to grow and develop
over these eighteen years.
It was built in a rural area, where its eighty acres backs
onto a large, county metro-park, but the gradual western growth
of the suburbs has brought neighborhoods of new homes, right
to its boarders.
Where once there was skepticism and hesitation in state government
about building a community for this special population, now
there is increasing need and demand for the services this
community is skilled in providing.
THE
SETTING
The
original farmstead contained a main house for fifteen residents,
a barn and a workshop. Gradual additions included a co-op
home for five more
independent
residents, two respite beds, as well as a classroom setting.
The horticulture center and greenhouses have expanded through
the years.
The
physical facilities continue to change in various ways. In
the last few years, Bittersweet has added greenhouses, tripling
their indoor growing capacity. They now have three greenhouses,
one double the size of the original, allowing them to now
grow three or four thousand flats of annuals and several hundred
hanging baskets each year. In one of the structures, they've
added an indoor relaxation garden, with banana plants and
a fountain.
They
have recently built a large pole barn for some of the tractors
and farm machinery. It is used as a maintenance area, although
it easily becomes a catchall for odds and ends, and has taken
a while to be optimally used. Other buildings have been renovated,
and windows have been replaced in the workshop.
A new four hundred-meter track was donated by a friend of
one of the families served at Bittersweet. It allows for increased
physical activity and exercise in a safe location. residents
can safely bike, skate, walk, run, sweep leaves, shovel snow
or be pulled in a horse-drawn hay wagon, all around the track.
There is no longer worry about them getting too close to the
nearby road. An adventure course along the track allows people
to have different kinds of physical experiences including
climbing, balancing, pulling and stepping, as they interact
with the various structures and obstacles.
Plans are on the drawing board for a new recreation and administration
building, to be built near the track. In that venue, vocational
day program activities can go on without interfering with
the residential program. Presently, the main house becomes
crowded with all the business and activities that go on there.
The privacy of the fifteen residents needs to be protected
and respected. The plan is to move many activities to a new
location as soon as municipal water and waste services are
extended to the property.
The addition of water and waste services, an important development,
has been planned and financed, thanks to a great co-operative
relationship between the village of Whitehouse, Lucas County
Commissioners and the many townships between Bittersweet Farms
and Whitehouse. The almost one million dollar project is expected
to be completed by spring, 2002. Bittersweet Farms will no
longer have to rely on wells for their water supply. Wells
have been unpredictable, for they could dry up, or if the
electricity went out, they could provide too little water
pressure in the event of a fire. This addition, will allow
the building program to move forward.
Their neighbors, Camp Courageous, have helped them with a
lot of projects that have been mutually advantageous, for
they also need the water. There has been talk about the water
line route becoming part of the rails-to-trails hike-bike
path that both can use. Other cooperative ventures might include
Bittersweet helping Camp Courageous by providing certain services,
like keeping the camp's horses in Bittersweet Farms' stable.
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