Wolf Ridge Will Host WWOOF's Future Farmers
June 12, 2023
Wolf Ridge Organic Farm
Ready to bring your group to Wolf Ridge? Contact Us
A classroom students can taste and share.
The Wolf Ridge Organic Farm is an immersive classroom where thousands of students each year get hands-on class experience learning about crucial issues like water quality, pollinator health, and soil fertility. The food grown, harvested, and processed on our farm feeds the Wolf Ridge dining hall and surrounding communities in the Arrowhead Region. The farm also mentors beginning farmers in small-scale vegetable production and farm entrepreneurship.
- Three high tunnel 30’ x 96’ greenhouses
- A processing building for washing, cooling and storing vegetables
- Outdoor classroom spaces
- A wood-fired pizza oven
- Pollinator gardens
- Crop and research fields
Starting a farm brings the soil to life, feeds a campus and supports a community.
It’s taken nearly ten years of perseverance to create the farm that exists today. Wolf Ridge Organic Farm was molded with great intentionality, vision, and drive, with plenty of detours along the way. From the logging to the grubbing to the Blood, Sweat, and Tears, it’s the combined effort of many hands that have created a space for growing and gathering there.
Wolf Ridge knows well the importance of self-care and community care and is putting them into practice as the organization maintains its momentum at the farm through this uncharted climate story. Through its eight-year harvest history, Wolf Ridge Organic Farm has continued to model a resilient and just food system that strives to supply healthy, organic, and affordable food for meals in the dining hall.
Today, students of the farm participate in growing vegetables for Wolf Ridge ELC meals and for our community partners in support of healthy food systems. These include Mesabi East School, Ely Food Shelf and Finland Farmer’s Markets.
WWOOFing at Wolf Ridge
We will be accepting WWOOF visit requests starting February 19 for the 2025 season with a target arrival date of June 8, 2025 or later. First submit a visit request through WWOOF, then fill out a Wolf Ridge Organic Farm Mentorship Form.
Farm Apprenticeship Program Updates
With support from the North Central Region Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education(NCR SARE)Program’s Beginning Farmer/Rancher fund, Wolf Ridge Farm worked closely with Friends of Finland and regional grant-makers in 2023 to develop a paid vegetable farming apprenticeship program. This program was implemented during the 2024 season, as the farm crew welcomed two apprentices to join them in the production of 30 herb and vegetable crops at Wolf Ridge ELC. The goal of this project was to mentor emerging farmers through accessible hands-on and technical training of sustainable farming practices. At the end of the season, this is what our apprentices had to say:
- “I chose this apprenticeship because of my growing interest in sustainable agriculture and environmental education. I’d managed a small produce farm in college, but I was sort of thrown into that role with very little training and I felt like I missed out on a lot of foundational skills that are necessary for being a successful organic farmer. I thought this opportunity was a great way to enhance my farming skills and my educational skills. I’m still on the fence about starting my own farm, but this apprenticeship actually reminded me that I really do like teaching, especially teaching environmental education/farming.”
- “The sincere conversations around our goals, communication styles, and hopes have left me with the strongest impressions and the best tools for moving forward. Using those conversations to steer the apprenticeship always felt very fortifying and rich in impact.”
- “I learned so much about what it takes to run an organic farm and the value of learning from mistakes and trying new things. I would like to work on an urban farm and perhaps take on a more educational role, and I can’t wait to use these skills to achieve that goal.”
Wolf Ridge will not be running the apprenticeship program for the 2025 season, but we are continuing to seek ways to support emerging farmers in our region as Wolf Ridge strives to be an active participant of a sustainable food system for all.
Our funding partners:
Meet Wolf Ridge Farm Manager Sarah Mayer
Sarah Mayer is the manager of Wolf Ridge Farm and has been educating others in nature and in food production for nearly 20 years, primarily in the midwest. A native of the Great Lakes region in rural southeast Wisconsin, Sarah values access to clean fresh water and fertile soils and attends to those resources with great care.
This sense of land stewardship was instilled in this farmer as a child and continued to grow with her tenure at The Nature Conservancy, tending native and naturalized perennials in the precious tallgrass prairies, wetlands, and oak openings. Sarah’s dedication to preserving our great places pairs nicely with nourishing others with nutrient-dense food, while sharing her passion to share the how’s and why’s of local food production.
Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center is a playground for those who wish to learn about food production systems and the natural world that supports them, which makes it a good fit for a farm educator. Sarah finds networking with other farmers and farm educators to be the key to effective outreach and education.
She leans on and contributes to the following networks and organizations to achieve a balance of producing food and teaching about food: Wisconsin Local Food Network, Farm-Based Education Network, Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota, Minnesota Fruit & Vegetable Growers Association, Four Season Farming Community, Market Gardening Success Group, Lean Farmers, and Marbleseed. Sarah is a member of the Lake County Extension Committee and serves on the Board of Directors of WWOOF-USA.
