About the Farm
The farm is a program of the Sorrento Centre and is a working model of the Sorrento Centre vision for creating a bridge between the more formal expressions of the Church’s life and the secularized multicultural society, as a place of meeting, a place of each experiencing the other, a place of engagement and a place of understanding.
- The Sorrento Centre Farm grows fresh food for the Kitchen at the Sorrento Centre Retreat and Conference Centre. Our guests and community have the opportunity to enjoy the highest quality fresh vegetables and fruit while staying at the Sorrento Centre.
- We offer diverse education programming for youths and adults of all ages and levels of experience and ability.
- An important part of the Sorrento Centre Farm is our commitment to sharing our abundance with those most in need in our community.
- We farm the land with natural and traditional methods that produce the highest quality and healthiest food for our community. We do not use synthetic chemicals on the Sorrento Centre Farm. We promote sustainable agriculture by growing food with methods that support and nurture the natural harmony of Creation.
The Sorrento Centre Farm is an education program and a working vegetable and fruit farm. The farm program began in late 2008 when Mary Rawson donated her 8-acre farm property to the Sorrento Centre. This beautiful farm was the original Coubeaux family homestead. It is just a 5 minute walk from the lake and includes a mature cottonwood forest as well as several very old Douglas Fir Trees, an abandoned Cherry Orchard and a heritage Finnish Tongue and Groove Cedar barn that is over 100 years old.
The summer of 2010 was our first growing season on the Sorrento Centre Farm. In 2010 we provided produce to 2 area charities and hosted a variety of workshops and tours of our farm. In 2011 we increased crop production by 40% and produced larger volumes of diverse produce for our Retreat Centre and for local charities.
In 2012 we have increased our field space again. Our field is now big enough for Farmer Dave to rotate the crops and leave part of the field in fallow each season. Each year we learn new lessons and further develop our relationship with the land and the elements of nature. We enter our third year of growing on Sorrento Centre Farm with a renewed sense of faith and confidence that the land will provide abundance.
The Sorrento Centre Farm Manager is David Wides. Dave is originally from the state of Illinois in the United States. He and his wife Marie and their daughter Eirwen now live at the Sorrento Centre as our resident farm family. David has been focused on the vocation of farming for 12 years.
David’s first job on a farm was at Rising River Organic Farm, a family owned Community Supported Agriculture and market farm in Rochester, Washington. This introduction to the organic agriculture industry was the beginning of a career path that would eventually lead him to the Sorrento Centre Farm.
After spending the summer of 2000 working at Rising River Organic Farm, David began college at the Evergreen State College in Olympia Washington. His academic pursuits quickly gravitated toward the sustainable agriculture program and Evergreen's Organic Farm.
On the academic side, David began taking every course available on organic farming methods. In addition to his academic work, David held two jobs at the Evergreen Organic Farm these jobs were as the Community Gardens Coordinator and the Compost Project Co-coordinator.
While in school David completed internships at Spring Creek Herb Farm in Rochester, Washington, Finca Alba Nueva in San Isidro Del General, Costa Rica, Jughandle Farm and Nature Center in Mendocino, California and Cold Spring Vegetable Farm in Underwood, Washington.
David spent his final year of college studying policy and working at the Washington State Department of Agriculture Small Farm and Direct Marketing Program. At the Agriculture Department he gained important administrative skills and learned about diverse small farm marketing methods.
Soon after graduation in the spring of 2005 David was hired as the Farm Manager for the Daughters of Charity Seton Harvest Community Supported Agriculture Farm in Evansville Indiana. This experience offered David the opportunity to manage the start-up and operations of a 10-acre vegetable farming operation.
In the fall of 2007 David and Marie decided to move to her native Canada and start a family. After arriving in B.C. David and Marie worked in the Vineyards of the Okanagan until finding the Sorrento Centre. The Sorrento Centre hired David as the Grounds Supervisor in the spring of 2008 just months after Mary Rawson donated her 8-acre property to the Sorrento Centre. David is now our Farmer and he is deeply thankful and happy to be farming in Sorrento at The Sorrento Centre Farm.
If you have inquiries about the farm please feel free to contact our Farm Manager Dave Wides by phone or email ».
