Jake Alexander is not a veteran. But without them, he said, he and others wouldn't be living the American dream. Watch video
ATHOL -- Jake Alexander is not a veteran. But without them, he said, he and others wouldn't be living the American dream.
The Abington native recently bought a 28-acre farm on a hill in Athol as a home for veterans and a place for them to heal and learn about farming.
He and farm manager Chip Pinder see Vets & Veggies as a care farm -- modeled after a concept known throughout Europe. Those farms use agricultural resources as a way to provide social or educational services to people in need.
Alexander and Pinder anticipate housing up to eight male veterans. Vets & Veggies is licensed as a boarding house and recently secured nonprofit status.
Pinder, 32, is a recent graduate of the University of Massachusetts Stockbridge School of Agriculture and a veteran of two tours of duty in Afghanistan. His dream had been to start a farm for veterans. He learned about Alexander's mission through a business planning manager. They met a few months ago.
A union laborer in the building trade, Alexander got involved in housing for veterans several years ago when he bought property in New Bedford for that purpose. He still owns the property and is working with a transitional housing program to find people to live there.
"I'm a Christian," he said. "I wanted to benefit more people than myself."
Alexander, who's 29, grew up with horses and working in his family's garden center in the eastern Massachusetts town of Hanson. He graduated from the University of New Hampshire, where he studied horticulture and landscape design, so the farming concept was not alien.
Watching housing websites, he found the Athol farm, which was once home to the Cass family, which owned several farms and N.D. Cass Co., a toy manufacturer. Alexander closed on the property last month. The house has nine bedrooms and a 19-stall horse barn.
Alexander launched a fundraising campaign on GoFundMe to raise money for purchases and for veterans who might need help with rent. So far he's raised more than $4,000 toward a $40,000 goal.
He sees the farm becoming self-sustaining. Five pigs, the first farm animal purchase, eventually will be slaughtered and the meat sold. The farm will also sell produce and farm shares.
Bob Farrar was getting help in a post-traumatic stress disorder clinic in Northampton when he heard about the farm. A former Worcester police officer, he is a veteran of Operation Desert Storm and also served a tour of duty in Somalia. He said he has been struggling with alcohol.
He needed a place to live and said he is a "jack of most trades." Alexander thought he'd be the perfect person to manage the house when he's out working. Farrar said he can do all kinds of work and builds furniture. He also worked on his uncle's dairy farm when he was a kid.
"I did fall in love with the place when I saw it," he said of Vets & Veggies.
Alexander said residents will also carry out repairs on the home as a way to learn about that kind of work. Those who live there will work in whatever ways they are able, Alexander said.
"Everyone pulls their weight," he said. "They'll have chores."
Pinder was working with horses and veterans in Palmer and said "it was like day and night," seeing how the veterans responded to the animals. "They were really tense, really on edge" when they came, he said. "Then just relaxing."
He envisions doing that kind of work here. The farm's first horse, a fjord draft horse, was expected this week.
Alexander said Vets & Veggies will work with the organization Heroes Horses and Hounds and provide therapeutic horses and two service dogs for veterans to work with. He also plans to have yoga space in the second floor of the barn.
For more information about donating to or living on the farm, visit the Vets & Veggies Facebook page.