Special Hearts Farm seeks to expand its special mission
At Special Hearts Farm, an agricultural-based job-training center for adults with intellectual disabilities, visitors can find fresh eggs, blackberry jelly and scented goat-milk soap for sale, but Devin Brooks found self-confidence.
“I speak up when I have ideas and concerns,” said Brooks, 29, who enrolled in farm programs about three years ago and shed a slow-learner label that she had carried in public school. “I feel like I have purpose.”
Incorporated in 2017 by two Orange County school teachers and parents of adult children with special needs, the farm also provides work experience and volunteer opportunities at the former Maxey Elementary School campus in Winter Garden for about 60 clients, who “aged-out” of special-education services at 22 years old.
Clients learn livestock care, woodworking, gardening and how to make soap using goat milk.
Brooks stood before Orange County commissioners several weeks ago and lobbied for a zoning change Special Hearts Farm needs to build a new 15-acre campus with client housing on Jones Avenue near Mount Dora.
“It’s getting a little cramped,” she said of the snug 3 acres in Winter Garden.
With a waiting list for clients, Special Hearts has an ambitious expansion plan and nearly $5.4-million in state funding, said co-founder Kathy Meena, but operators of a larger farm surrounding the proposed site have objected.
“I have the unfortunate role of having to oppose some great people I think highly of. But I think it’s incompatible in terms of what we’re doing with our property,” said Ryan Atwood, a partner in H & A Farms, a 525-acre agri-business.
He described H & A as blueberry, strawberry and sod growers.
Special Hearts’ expansion requires a zoning change at the new site, a former chicken farm acquired in October 2021 for $899,000, because the organization intends to build one-story, dormitory-style housing for up to 50 clients.
Meena said housing is critical to Special Hearts’ future, offering a safety net for clients likely to outlive aging, caretaker parents. But the residential component is troubling to H & A’s Michael Hill.
He said H & A produces about 40% of the state’s blueberries, using chemical applications, firing air cannons to keep birds away from the berries, and employing other strategies “not conducive to the enjoyment of residential housing.”
While Hill called Special Hearts Farm “a phenomenal project,” he objected nonetheless.
“I just want to go on record that we’ve been farming it and we can’t change the way we farm,” Hill told the zoning panel. “I can just potentially see there being issues with having residents on the property.”
Special Hearts’ housing component may create another hurdle.
No sewers serve the site so the not-for-profit wants a waiver of county septic regulations.
In a letter to county officials, land-use attorney Rebecca Wilson objected on behalf of H &A, alleging “the large-capacity on-site septic system contemplated by [Special Hearts Farm] creates a substantial risk of contamination of the groundwater that H&A uses for irrigation which would adversely impact H&A’s property and operation. …”
She said septic was inappropriate for a protected area like the Lake Apopka Basin.
Meena said the farm will ensure its system is safe for clients and the environment.
The farm’s mission is to “provide a meaningful day,” Meena said.
Clients spend their time with friends, learning, working and sometimes volunteering for other community service agencies like Meals On Wheels, which delivers meals to disabled or homebound older adults.
“I am so happy I have this special farm to go to every day,” said Jason Carmichael, 23.
He said he likes most things about the farm — riding the bus, “Pizza Fridays,” working with the goats and ducks, and sweeping the barn, even though it means scooping poop, his least favorite chore.
