Internships

An Internship at Sandhill Farm is an opportunity to be a part of a group of adults and children growing organic food, building intentional community, and endeavoring to live a sustainable lifestyle. Interns participate, as non-members, in all aspects of the community for the length of their stay. This includes our meetings and consensus decision making process, cooking for the community, spending time with children and creative problem solving for projects. We expect interns to be open to dialoguing about what they say or do as a part of the group. Our community norms align with feminism, egalitarianism and nonviolence. Interns often become part of our extended family of friends.

We enjoy hosting interns! They bring new energy to our community and we deeply appreciate the help they offer. It is important to us to share our lifestyle and what we are learning of sustainable living. We also look forward to the social aspect of having more people and diversity on the farm.

Interns are integrated into the community with the help of a "liaison". This person is either a member or another intern who acts as a buddy for the first weeks, helping the new intern get settled in to the routines, norms and landscape here. We conduct regular reviews with the interns so that either intern or other Sandhill residents can bring up any concerns in a timely manner. Concerns, when they arise, are addressed cooperatively and creatively.

Our work day typically begins between 7 and 9 in the mornings.  We generally work till noon, take a relaxed lunch break and then resume our activity for a few more hours in the afternoon.   Depending on weather and the demands of the season, we sometimes work in the garden or do food processing after our dinner meal.  Within this general schedule, we encourage each other to pace ourselves according to our abilities and take care to take time for relaxation and personal needs.

Because of the great variety of vegetables and fruit we grow and put up, we are able to accommodate most diets.   In general we eat a high fiber, vegetarian diet with a venison option served approximately twice a week.   We rarely use refined sugars or grains in our meals, preferring our on farm produced honey, sorghum and maple syrup and our farm grown wheat.  We also tend to keep dairy out of the meals since we no longer have a milking cow but have dairy available from a local, organic farm for side dishes or toppings. 

This year, 2008, we are looking for an intern pool with strong interests in organic gardening, food preservation, tempeh production, sustainable farming and homestead maintenance. This year, we have positions open for a Dual Focussed Internship where the intern splits their time between time food growing and processing and either (a) tempeh production or (b)farm maintenance and/or fieldwork.

This internship generally does not offer classes however, we do work with the Kansas City Growing Growers Program which provides educational opportunities to aspiring farmers and market growers. It is possible to be an intern at Sandhill and attend workshops with the Kansas City area farmers. If you hope to be here for seven months or more, this may appeal to you. Please see their website and our writeup in their list of host farmers.

We are a working farm with a wide variety of projects going on at any given time. We regularly discuss and post project schedules and needs. Interns are expected to focus their work energies in food growing and processing.

Much of the learning and mentoring occurs while doing. Self motivation, good communication and the ability to work independently some of the time are keys to a good intern experience.

Organic gardening/food preservation includes: care of several large organic gardens, two fruit orchards, berry patches and an herb garden. Work involves planting, mulching, weeding, watering, pruning, compost building, harvesting, cover cropping and food preservation (canning, freezing, solar drying). We also make herbal tinctures, raise shitake mushrooms and have various ferments going at any given time.

Tempeh production includes: cooking and inoculating soybeans, monitoring the incubation, sorting tempeh by grade, bagging tempeh and final packaging.

Homestead maintenance includes: maintaining, fixing and upgrading our buildings, bicycles, vehicles and structures using such skills as carpentry, welding, cobbing, electrical knowhow and creative problem solving. Such projects might include replacing gutters, repairing sheetrock, building shelving, fixing flats, etc.

Fieldwork includes: Operating small tractors with implements to perform discing, tilling, mowing and cultivation. In addition, various biodynamic soil preparations are applied throughout the growing season.

Other areas of farm/community life that interns will have an opportunity to participate in include: poultry raising, commercial food production (mustard/horseradish/specialty condiments), bee-keeping and honey harvesting, staffing our product table at fairs, outreach work for the Fellowship for Intentional Community,FIC (office located at Sandhill), product delivery trips, planning social events and conducting research.

Meals, Housing and Stipend: Sandhill provides all on-farm meals. Our diet is primarily low dairy vegetarian supplemented with homegrown meat (or locally hunted venison.) Special needs diets are accomodated. Interns are expected to bring their own tent and tarp to sleep outdoors. Some indoor housing may be available. Community common spaces are available for writing, reading, etc. A $50.00 per month stipend is provided to each intern whose stay is a minimum of 10 weeks.

Relaxation: While there is always more work that can be done on an active farm/ community, there are also many opportunities to relax solo or in the company of others. Our land has inviting swimming ponds and woodland walks. We have a rich library collection, craft projects abound, our meals are very social, we like to have friends over and we often create our own entertainment.

We are happy to give references to future employers of interns. And, we are open to considering interns for membership at the end of their internship period.