The All Seasons Barn is Here!
After many long years of planning, designing, fundraising, negotiating, building, and hoping, it’s finally here! A beautiful new barn that will allow Wright-Locke to expand its educational and community programming, not only in the type of opportunities offered, but also in extending our season for programs and events.
Our events team, Farm Chef, and education programs are already making use of the All Seasons Barn. Register for programs in our farm kitchen here! If you’re interested in booking an event in the All Seasons Barn, please contact our Events Director, Ambika Patel.
Thank you to everyone who helped make this dream a reality!
All Seasons Barn Kitchen Registry!
Help us outfit our teaching kitchen for youth and adult classes through our Farm Kitchen Registry! Pitch in and leave your mark on our kitchen! Let’s fill it with color and fun!
We’ll take new or gently used donations. Email our Farm Chef, Kelcy, at farmchef@wlfarm.org with photos / a description of any used items that you wish to donate so we can make sure that the item will work for the space, coordinate a drop off, and update our registry accordingly. Thank you all for your support!
Stay tuned for our All Seasons Barn Open House later this summer!
Update: January 2021
Update: December 2020
After a long year, the All Seasons Barn is just about finished! (We can’t wait for our Forest Friends classes (pre-k kids) to be able to use the space to warm up their fingers and toes this winter!)
We have exciting news! One of our generous donors has stepped up to offer a challenge match to finish the fundraising for this building. Our donor has offered to match up to $150,000 in donations to close out the deal! Over the last couple of weeks, we have been able to match an impressive $105,000! Can you help us reach our goal?! Only $45,000 to go out of our original $3.35 million fundraising goal. We are SO CLOSE!
Update: September/October 2020
As the All Seasons Barn gets closer to being finished, we can’t help but get excited about what this year-round barn will mean for the future of the farm and the programming that it will allow us to do.
Update: July 2020
We’ve been making progress on the All Seasons Barn despite the pandemic. Our contractors have been doing a great job keeping the job site safe and moving at the same time.
Things really started to take a visual turn when they started putting up the siding a couple of weeks ago! Everything is taking shape! Inside, all the wiring and ductwork has been coming together as well!
Update: April 2020
Check out this video that long-time volunteer, Joshua Schindelman, put together as part of a year-long project with the Farm, his middle school, and WinCAM. He’s been documenting the construction of the All Seasons Barn at Wright-Locke. Here’s Part 3 – Construction.
We’re so excited to have the building up after long last and that the crew has been able to work while keeping safe standards and procedures in place.
This building is even more important now to the success of the Farm after the disruption of our normal programming because of the Coronavirus. Having a space ready to conduct educational and event programming over the cold months later this year will help us recoup from some of the losses that we are seeing currently.
Update: February 25th 2020
On Monday, February 17th, Bensonwood (the timber frame building company) dropped off all the materials for the All Seasons Barn on site and for the past two weeks, their build team has been making excellent progress on the building. It’s been amazing to watch the process. Here are some pictures of the different building stages.
Update: February 2020
Check out this video that long-time volunteer, Joshua Schindelman, put together as part of a year-long project with the Farm, his middle school, and WinCAM. He’s been documenting the construction of the All Seasons Barn at Wright-Locke. Here’s Part 2 – Foundation.
The Barn frame and envelope is slated to go up during the week of Feb 17th. Stop by and see the progress!
Update: January 2020
During December and January, our construction crews have been working on prepping, digging, and pouring the foundation for the All Seasons Barn. The deck went on towards the end of January. The deck is made in NH by Bensonwood from prefabricated sections that create a strong, super insulated, airtight seal for the building. The rest of the barn frame and building envelope will be created this way as well for the integrity and sustainability of the building.
Update: December 2019
Check out this video that long-time volunteer, Joshua Schindelman, put together as part of a year-long project with the Farm, his middle school, and WinCAM. He’s been documenting the construction of the All Seasons Barn at Wright-Locke. Here’s part 1 – demolition.
Update: November 2019
November 12th – the demo team came in to take down the mustard-colored house at 82 Ridge St. This building had been abandoned and vacant for decades. Originally, when the farm started thinking about creating a kitchen/classroom space, the house was looked at as a remodel option. However, this house was too far gone, moldy, and completely the wrong layout for the farm’s dream. It made more sense to start anew. So, here’s to new beginnings!
Update: October 2019
Update: July 2019
After our successful Green Match Challenge, we’ve been working diligently to figure out the rest of the equation.
So far we’ve raised $2.35 Million of our $3 Million Goal.
We’ve been in close discussion with the town and our architects, builders, and sustainability advisors to figure out all the details. We have updated schematics of the latest layouts. This most recent plan is smaller than our original plan. We are really happy with this change as it has preserved all the important pieces of the project that will be needed for farm programming, while simplifying the overall construction and building envelope – thus bringing our the overall price down.
Update: June 2019
Background of the All Seasons Barn
Over the last 10 years, our dedicated staff, hundreds of committed volunteers, and countless generous donors have turned this raspberry-patch into a thriving sustainable farm that nourishes, educates, and connects our community. The outpouring of support, participation, and demand for what we offer has been truly humbling. It is obvious that our community is hungry for the opportunities the farm can provide. However, our ability to meet this current demand and to continue to grow and extend our reach is now limited by the constraints of our facilities.
The All Seasons Barn will serve to:
Educate leaders and educators of tomorrow with internships, classes, job opportunities, and conferences for youth and adults hungry to learn. A year-round facility allows us to collaborate with schools and universities on an academic year schedule and build more efficient, long-lasting partnerships.
Photo Credit: Powisset Farm Kitchen
Provide cooking and nutrition education with a teaching kitchen to better serve our existing community, collaborate with hospitals, patient groups, and other local food and social-justice organizations. Improve accessibility for special needs groups and those with mobility challenges so even more people can enjoy the Farm.
Provide twice the capacity for programming and the ability to hold year-round programs. We won’t have to turn away interested school groups or cancel community events for lack of a safe retreat from bad weather.
Sustain and steward the Farm for generations to come. This building will foster sustainability on multiple fronts: year-round programming will stabilize our financial model and the building will be a key element in working towards becoming a Net Zero operation.
NOW is the time for the All Seasons Barn!
- We are limited by the constraints of our facilities
- Our education programs and events are at full capacity in terms of facilities and staff
- We lack heated indoor space, so our operations cease for five months out of the year
- We have no commercial kitchen on premises for teaching or fully utilizing the crops in our fields
- Demands on our staff are high, we need the resources to employ full-time year-round staff to accommodate the growing interest in our farm
- We rely on donations for the maintenance of our irreplaceable historic buildings
It Takes a Community to Raise a Barn!
Interested in making a pledge, or getting involved in our campaign?
Contact Executive Director, Archie McIntyre:
Email: amcintyre@wlfarm.org
Phone: 781-760-1017
