For nearly a decade, Johnson County’s Historic Poor Farm has focused on upgrades to make their site a reliable source of food production, agriculture education, and history education.
Now, the organization will be breaking ground on their communal kitchen in the coming months, furthering their efforts to help the Johnson County community become more food secure.
The Johnson County Board of Supervisors officially awarded Peak Construction Group Inc. the contract of the Johnson County Historic Poor Farm Kitchen Project for $1.6 million on Sept. 5.
Most of this funding comes from the American Rescue Plan Act. According to a statement by Chairman of Johnson County’s Board of Supervisors Rod Sullivan, Johnson County will pay $400,000.
In 2016, the Johnson County Board of Supervisors set out to publicize the land to benefit the community. In partnership with the board of supervisors and the community, the Historic Poor Farm created its 10-year master improvement plan, including the ideas for the communal kitchen and a shared farm space for the community.
Ilsa DeWald, Johnson County’s local food and farm manager, said the idea for the project came from the community’s desire to create a space where they could grow and share produce.
“A lot of the push for this plan came from the fact that there were community groups who are interested in utilizing some of the farmable land to grow produce for the community,” DeWald said.
After hosting a survey, the organization found there was a need for more communal kitchens. The organization’s kitchen will be used for numerous things, including catering events and renting out space for local food entrepreneurs.
However, DeWald believes there will be more uses for the kitchen than the actual farm-to-table meals that are sure to be made onsite. She said the space could be used as a cooking demonstration space or for food-based classes.
“We’re still dreaming on the extent of the possibilities,” Dewald said. “We really tried to make the design of this kitchen infrastructure flexible to meet all of these different needs.”
Over the years, the poor farm has continued to value fresh produce for the community. The first program to come to the Historic Poor Farm was Grow Johnson County, which still utilizes the space.
Grow Johnson County started off as an agriculture project proposal specifically for the Historic Poor Farm, Lisa Stark, the education and outreach coordinator for the organization, said. Their organization works to create healthy, seasonal food access within the community and educate people about where their food comes from.
The Johnson County Historic Poor Farm has been vital in the work of Grow Johnson County, allowing it to grow nearly 42,000 pounds of produce and distribute it to people in the community who need it most — free of charge.
“[Working with the Historic Poor Farm] has given us a place to grow six acres of organic vegetables for the community,” Stark said. “We send produce to 17 organizations throughout the county, [such as] food access sites and sites that are cooking meals.”
Part of the poor farm’s 10-year plan is to utilize community input to further develop the farm and create a space that is totally used by and for the community, as well as returning the unused parts back to nature.
To make the farm a space for the entire community, it must be accessible to all people. Before the communal kitchen, the Historic Poor Farm created a trail between the historic buildings. Not only is this trail ADA-accessible, but it provides an opportunity for reflection on the farm’s complicated past.
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“The idea was that the trail could bring all of these separate feeling buildings together,” DeWald said. “A big component of the healing trail is that along the way, you can visit the interpretive signage that tells the pieces of the story of the historic warfare. So, if a member of the public wants to visit the farm and wants to do a self-guided tour, [they’re] able to do that.”
Alexandra McKendree is the executive director of the society, and both her and the Johnson County Historical Society manage historical interpretation for the Historic Poor Farm and three other sites in Johnson County. The farm, however, is highly unique, McKendree said.
“Our county has always been cognizant of the importance of the history of the Poor Farm and the progression and establishment of mental health care in our county and the state of Iowa,” McKendree said. “The Johnson County Historic Poor Farm is one of very few historic poor farms preserved the way it has been by the county.”
As the site provides a side of history very few preservations can show, it is vital to keep all of the historical buildings intact during construction, according to the Historic Poor Farm’s website. In the coming months, preparation will be done to ensure the farm is able to run smoothly. DeWald and the organization have been updating their partners about the upcoming projects, and they will be continuing to work with them to navigate any construction challenges.
McKendree said as the site is on the National Register of Historic Places, the Peak Construction Group will have to follow a set of guidelines during construction to protect the historic aspects of the site.
The preservation of the Historic Poor Farm allows visitors to see the growth of mental health care, among other topics, in Iowa. In contrast, the additions allow it to become something more than an input to the harsh realities of poor farms. While still honoring its history, the Johnson County Historic Poor Farm staff and improvement plan are updating the site’s uses to aid the community more than ever.
“Mainly we’ll use the kitchen as an educational tool as a way to host cooking classes [and] food preservation classes, and really get people more hands-on with the food that they grow,” Stark said. “If Grow could be a facilitator of aggregating that produce and utilizing that commercial kitchen to preserve and send that product out in the wintertime, that’s kind of my big bold vision for the future.”