[Birds singing, chickens clucking, horse neighing] [Music]
[Music]
[Man] You do keep your receipt. [Sally] Right. They need gloves, too. They were supposed to take care of that. You want me to …?
[Cam] I have my own gloves. [Man] Is there anything else they should know? Being around the horses for example?
[Sally] Yes, Anna or I need to be supervising you.
[Nick] Well I'm from Lynn, Massachusetts. Like, like, see, like, we, we
we don't have these, these kind of animals
where I come from. Well maybe, well maybe I’ll get off
my phone for a while. I’m always on it.
[Sarah] Right now we're in a summer program. We go into schools.
We go in and we teach job readiness.
But the newest thing that we've added this year is AgrAbility.
What we're finding is businesses are afraid to hire kids with disabilities,
so our goal is to help the businesses learn about kids with disabilities,
but also bring them on board to show how they do.
[Background chatter]
We have three kids here at the farm.
They've been given tasks to do each day.
They work three days a week and then come into a classroom for us at the end of the week.
And the fun thing for the summer programs, they get paid.
[Sally] These kids are really motivated. They like animals.
They're interested in agriculture, so I think it'll be a good fit.
[Background chatter]
[Cam] I am learning a lot about myself and a lot about these animals.
And I’m learning how to communicate with my peers better.
Hey, Nick, I have an idea. [Nick] What? [Cam] Once I get a first layer done, you
can do a second layer on these. [Nick] All right.
[Cam] See, teamwork is awesome. Teamwork is everything in business.
If you don’t have teamwork in your business, you don't get very far. [Nick] That’s right.
[Deb] It’s interesting because when they first come here,
they're always a little bit quiet but they've come right out of their shell very quickly.
[Gwen] They're totally personable, just out there. It's amazing.
[Cam] Yeah, I hope I can get a full-time job here. If it works out, if it works out with me getting a full-time job here, that means I’ll be able to be here everyday and have more and more fun.
[Music]
[Anna] Farmers are a dying breed.
[Cam] Over the last 50 years there’s been a massive drop in interest in farms.
We are losing them.
[Sally] We are losing farmers left and right. We can't get good help and,
as an older farmer, we need to encourage youth, you know, especially youth with disabilities.
It's just, it's a perfect fit. [Cam] Thanks, Sally! [Sally] You’re welcome.
[Cam] My biggest dream is to start my own business and own
my own farm someday. That was, you know, a big dream for me. I am very passionate about it.
[Background chatter]
[Sally] I didn't think she could, like, dump a
huge wheel barrow of manure and she said, “No, I could do this,”
and to see her motor on out of the barn with a big wheelbarrow,
I mean, she just really has surprised me.
[Background chatter and animal noises]
[Sally] Everybody can be successful on the farm.
[Music]
[Background chatter] [Nick] Okay, look it, look it, this door’s, like, busted.
[Deb] We had about, oh, I’d say almost 15 or more so sheep
that we're getting out and we go around the corner and they're all running at us,
so the students were kind of like, “Oh my goodness, what do I do?”
And they just problem-solved very great and just kind of corralled them until we got the fence fixed and whatnot.
[Anna] I look forward to those moments because, actually, to see kids
really start to become more self-confident and like, okay,
if things do go wrong, things will go wrong, this is how I'm going to solve it, instead of,
you know, breaking down and being like, okay, who do I need to call to solve these problems.
That's self growth, I think.
[Cam] I think we had a lot of problems to solve so far,
and we overcame all of them, so far.
And I want to keep on overcoming it.
[Music]
[Sally] Pop-pop wants to know how to clean horse’s feet. So explain to Pop-pop what you’re doing. [Sam] Grabbing a foot.
[Sally] Which way you're facing? [Sam] His bum.
[Sally] His bum, that’s right. Okay. So grab that foot.
[Sam] You are stubborn. [Sally] Push into her a little bit. Grab again. Oopsie, wait a minute. She’s coming out. You gotta not let’em win
One more time. Yay, teamwork! High five!
[Background chatter]
Otherwise, we have to fight him again. Yeah, so he’s young, he doesn’t know.
This is all new to him. Gotta train him. Good job, guys. Way to not give up, kiddo.
[Cam] I’m gonna put him out in the shade a little bit. [Sally] Okay, give him a little grass. There you go.
[Deb] We've heard that all three kids love it here.
[Cam] It’s just another day doing what I love. I love this job.
Work should be fun. If you don't have fun at work, I don't know why you're doing your job.
I love it.
[Deb] So today's the last day here at the farm.
Kids have learned a lot. They now can come right in and they know
what their job is and they can pretty much do it all on their own now.
[Nick] Like this morning, I just, I just came right in, put my hat over there, and then just got to work.
[Deb] He's like, all right, I'm gonna start doing my tasks and doing what I know I got to do.
I'm like, sounds great, and he went over and grabbed the hose and did it, so,
so yeah, they step right up to the plate and have done it.
[Sally] And I don't think their as afraid to fail.
[Deb] Because they know the importance of it. Their confidence is there.
[Sam] I’m not even tired. Let’s go.
[Man] I know when we first interviewed you, you said you used your phone a lot and you were hoping this would get you off your phone a lot. Do you think it has? [Nick] Yeah. Yeah.
[Cam] I love this job. This is everything. Everything I ever wanted is right here. The farm. The horses. I hang out with people who I know every day.
[Marie] A lot of times Anna would say, Cam, you got this, you know it. He was like, oh, okay.
He wasn't asking about every step if he was doing a good job.
He was starting to know he was doing a good job.
[Sally] I think Sam has surprised me the most of what she's willing to do and what she's capable of doing.
[Marie] I think Sam has developed the feeling like she can do just about anything.
[Sally] I mean, she’s tiny, but she's really pretty strong so it's really important,
especially these kids who might be marginalized by society.
They can be successful in agriculture. They can start their own businesses.
[Sarah] Okay? I know goodbyes are hard but this isn’t goodbye.
[Marie] Sam is someone who really thrives on caring for something else.
It kind of gave her the ability to express how she's really feeling without hiding her feelings.
[Music]
[Cam] I know my disability is not gonna affect all I do for myself.
It doesn’t define who I am. Actually, it makes me work harder.
[Music]
[Cam] I wanna thank you guys so much for doing everything you did.
[Man] Of course. Thank you, Cam.
[Cam] I have, I hope, I hope it turned out how you want it.
[Man] Yeah, I think this is a very positive ending. You know, you want to come back here, right?
[Cam] Yeah.
[Music]