Tannon Herman, executive director of Wildheart Ministries (left) and a student at The Hill Farm.
Community members are pushing back against a recent Harrisburg School District decision to cut ties with a city nonprofit.
Local residents and staff of Wildheart Ministries in Allison Hill spoke out on Tuesday against the district’s decision to halt the nonprofit’s operations on a district-owned farm property.
Since May 2023, the district has leased its property at 213 S. 18th St., formerly known as the Joshua Farm, to Wildheart, which proposed a plan to operate the land and provide educational opportunities for students.
According to Wildheart officials, they’ve used the land, which they’ve called The Hill Farm, to grow produce, host educational programming for youth and hold community farmers markets in partnership with Hamilton Health Center.
At a Nov. 26 meeting, district receiver Dr. Lori Suski terminated the lease agreement with Wildheart. At the meeting, the district had also proposed declaring the property as unnecessary in order to move toward selling it. However, Suski removed that piece of the resolution after board members expressed interest in keeping the land.
At the November meeting, Suski did not explain why the contract with Wildheart was terminated despite the district deciding to retain the land, only stating that it would “free up the opportunity for the district to assess what it wants to do with the property.” When reached by TheBurg this week, the district spokesperson declined to comment for the story, saying Suski would not be available for comment until later this month.
According to Executive Director Tannon Herman, Wildheart was not aware that the agreement was on the chopping block until after the meeting.
At this week’s meeting, he and other Wildheart staff, volunteers and community members asked the district to rethink the decision.
“In my community, they help us tremendously,” said resident Brian Humphrey. “We want to keep them because they make the quality of life in our community better […] I can’t believe that you would even think of taking that farm from them. Whoever made that decision ought to be embarrassed.”
The contract was terminated once before, briefly in June 2023, due to concerns over the way the organization was using the property. At the time, Suski said that she had concerns about safety and potential liabilities based on information and photographs she was provided by community members. She also said that she had received a letter of protest from another entity that had submitted a proposal in response to the district’s Request for Proposals (RFP), and that the district received numerous Right-to-Know requests in regard to the contract with Wildheart. She said that based on the safety concerns and the amount of time and effort it was taking the district to respond to Right-to-Knows, the district determined it was best to end the agreement.
However, the contract was reinstated the following August after Suski learned that Wildheart had received a federal grant for the farm. The agreement extended through Dec. 31, 2024, noting that the agreement could continue for an additional year unless the district decided to terminate it.
Herman told TheBurg that he believed the district received “false information surrounding claims of unsafe practices” at the farm. He said Wildheart provided evidence to the contrary to the district.
Herman shared that Wildheart welcomed over 500 students to the farm this year, a large majority of whom were Harrisburg School District students. The Hill Farm also produced 5,500 pounds of produce, which was sold at its regular farmers market, held in partnership with Hamilton Health Center, he said. Several Hamilton Health officials also attended Tuesday’s board meeting to speak in support of Wildheart.
Wildheart officials said that they’ve received and shared with the district hundreds of community letters of support and petition signatures. They’ve also received several state- and federally-funded grants for the property.
“I’m standing here on behalf of the youth of this city, youth who don’t oftentimes have an opportunity to eat decent food […] That should be a right that everyone has, but oftentimes it’s a right that has been overlooked in this city. But it’s a right that has been serviced by Wildheart Ministry and this farm,” said one community member.
Herman asked that, at the very least, Wildheart be given an extension to the date that the termination goes into effect, Dec. 31, to ensure they have time to remove equipment.
“If they have plans to better utilize the space to have a greater impact, we are in full support of that!” Herman told TheBurg. “We are obviously very invested (as are our many community partners like Penn State Extension, Hamilton Health Center, Dauphin County NRCS, Downey Student Council and a few other student programs operating within the district) and believe in the significance of the work being done there, but we’re team players and all about loving and serving our neighbors!”
Updated on 12/13 to include link to petition.
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