Needs From: Loudoun Cares

Wanted:  Board Member with Focus on Fundraising & Community Networking 

Legacy Farms maintains a working board of directors to provide quarterly review, feedback, and guidance to the organization. In addition, each member takes a leadership role in their field of expertise to ensure that initiatives are fulfilled in between quarterly meetings. 

Legacy Farms is seeking board members with an interest in leading initiatives for effective Fundraising and Community Networking. 

This includes seeking out community leaders interested in supporting Legacy Farms’ mission, developing and maintaining good relationships with contacts, seeking corporate sponsorships, and working with the Executive Director to pursue grant funding. It may also include fundraising event coordination, either online or in person, depending on the Board Member’s availability and areas of interest and enthusiasm. 

Legacy Farms holds board meetings four times a year, usually on a Saturday or Sunday of the following months (unless otherwise scheduled): June, September, December, March. Board meetings last approximately two hours to provide oversight and review of progress, solve organizations challenges, set or revise goals, and hear about sub-committee progress and needs. 

About Legacy Farms: Legacy Farms is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, established in 2012. We offer apprenticeship-style learning and job opportunities in a neurodiverse community of individuals preparing for college, learning a trade, or seeking internships to further their education. 

We are a neurodiverse team of mentors, apprentices, college students, community members and service organization volunteers all working together! Our current garden locations are at Fabbioli Cellars and Temple Hall Regional Park in Leesburg, Virginia. 

What is Neurodiversity? Neurodiversity is a concept where neurological differences are to be recognized and respected as any other human variation. These differences can include those labeled with Dyspraxia, Dyslexia, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Dyscalculia, Asperger, Autistic Spectrum, Tourette Syndrome, and others. 

How We Fulfill Our Mission Apprentices are hired for eight-week paid contract positions to perform essential tasks in the gardens and on landscaping assignments. Mentors serve as coaches, providing guidance on job skills, teamwork, social awareness, and self-advocacy. Apprentices may also be hired for special projects that develop their talents and benefit the organizations’ objectives, including assignment for design, writing, videography for social media, distributor relationship development, event/project coordination, etc. 

We partner with Lightfoot Restaurant, Roots to Rise, GlowStudios, and other local businesses to deliver fresh vegetables, herbs, and flowers. And we work closely with selected business partners to develop job placement options. We also partner with The New Ag School, PosAbilities Academy, Embark Center to develop innovative programming and expanded learning opportunities. 

Learn more on our website: https://www.legacyfarmsvirginia.org/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LegacyFarmsVirginia/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-jHqK3lMYP4CAXsF7h9D2Q 

Contact us to discuss the position further: Lyoung@legacyfarmsvirginia.org

Mentor Job Description - Paid - On-site job coach

Legacy Farms is a small non-profit with an educational garden at Fabbioli Cellars, just outside of Leesburg. Our neurodiverse team of staff, mentors, and apprentices grow and deliver herbs, flowers, and vegetables to area businesses and food pantries. Select businesses even partner with us to employ our apprentices. This specific job will be working with an apprentice outside the garden on-site to develop work training skills and job experience.

Do you have a background in special education, social work/mental health, therapeutic work, or gardening with a desire to support neurodiverse individuals? Have you ever worked in a commercial kitchen? Are you available to work 3-hours per week, coaching one to two neurodiverse apprentices seeking to develop their job skills, self-awareness, and ability to self-advocate in future employment positions?

Growing Together,​ our mentor/apprentice program, is focused on hiring, training, mentoring, and facilitating increased personal development for neurodiverse individuals including those with Autism, Asperger, ADHD, specific learning disabilities, and related challenges that make landing and keeping a job difficult.

We hire mentors for 8-week job contracts, structured around a clearly designed 7-step framework. Provide job coaching for neurodiverse individuals to introduce work skills, personal awareness, and address specific challenges each individual has experience in getting and keeping a job. This is an opportunity to give back to your community, while increasing your own skills in working with neurodiverse individuals. You do need patience, calm communications skills, and understanding of the executive function, self-regulation, and self-awareness challenges and gifts associated with neurodiversity.

We prioritize a relationally based work environment where reciprocal communication is key to learning and self-development. We welcome challenges and set-backs as learning opportunities. And we believe that a balanced, well-regulated nervous system is the first step in increasing executive function, organizational, and emotional regulation on the job.

Sample duties include​:

Attend review meetings with Legacy Farms leadership to receive apprentice assignments, develop plan(s) of

action, and discuss philosophical principles related to mentoring

Identify each assigned apprentice(s)’ “edge of independence” to refine goals and deliverables

Create supports, materials, communications, guided instructions and networked relationships that move

apprentice(s) along a continuum of progress and independence in job skills

Attend work with the apprentice for two hours per work day; up to 2x/week. Coaching and working alongside the apprentices to complete assigned work tasks

Dedicate an additional hour per week to prepare for consults with assigned apprentice(s) on areas of challenge

and strategies for success in relation to agreed-upon responsibilities (by phone, email, or in person during garden hours)

Keep basic notes about each apprentices’ progress and complete quantitative and qualitative review of apprentices’ performance at the end of the 8-week period.

Hours​: ​2x per week (TBD) 5:30pm-7:30pm (on site); one hour per week on your own schedule to prepare/coach off-site. Location​: ​An assigned commercial kitchen in Ashburn.