A Farm Less Ordinary

Goal: $30,000.00

Specific Need

We hope to raise at least $30,000 today during the Give Choose fundraising marathon.

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HELP US REACH $10,000 AND WE WILL UNLOCK AN ADDITIONAL $10,000 IN CHALLENGE DONATIONS---
Your gift TODAY goes 2x as far!

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Your donations contribute to the following organizational expenses:

$15,000 covers the cost of employing one adult with intellectual/developmental/cognitive disabilities during the growing season (last year we employed 30 Growers, and worked another ~30 special ed students, day program participants, and volunteer Growers)
$7,200 pays for 100 large blueberry plants, which we need to jumpstart our orchard at our Leesburg farm
$2,700 pays for 100 fruiting raspberry plants, which we need to jumpstart our orchard at our Leesburg farm
$500 covers the cost of an average bi-weekly paycheck to a Grower with an intellectual/developmental/cognitive disability
$200 pays for 100 seed plug trays in which we start our seedlings each spring
$100 keeps the lights and cooling systems on at our farm for a month
$25 buys 5 packets of tomato seeds

Mission

A Farm Less Ordinary (AFLO) is a 501c3 non-profit whose mission is to provide meaningful employment and a welcoming community to adults with intellectual, developmental, and cognitive disabilities.

At AFLO, we serve Growers with a range of intellectual, developmental, & cognitive disabilities, which necessarily includes learning difficulties, almost always includes attention deficit issues, and quite often includes sensory integration disorders. In other words, our Growers have a range of learning disabilities and trouble focusing, particularly when there are distracting noises, crowds, lights, and conflicting demands for their attention.The simplicity of work in wide open spaces, with plenty of distance between yourself and other coworkers or volunteers, reduces the noise, crowding, and distractions of competing activities one would experience while working indoors, in a retail/office/industrial environment. Once outdoors in a peaceful farm environment, we can better capture our Growers’ attention to develop key employment skills.

We are a farm, a community, a tribe. Help us get people out of their houses and into paying, meaningful jobs. Help us give people the support they need and the respect they deserve as contributing members of our society.

Profile

Come to Our Music Festival, A Fest Less Ordinary, on June 7, 2026 at 868 Winery in Purcellville, VA: afarmlessordinary.org/aflo-music-festival

Subscribe to Our Weekly Veggie Boxes this Summer and Fall through Our CSA Program: afarmlessordinary.csaware.com

We are a small organization that has experienced some dramatic and wonderful changes over the last couple of years. Founded by two DC-based parents who have a son with autism and decided to move to Virginia to establish a simpler and safer home for him, AFLO began in 2016 with 3 young "Growers" on the Co-Founders property in Bluemont, VA just off the Appalachian Trail and a 1-hour drive from DC. Since 2020, we have been changing lives on a 23-acre farm in Leesburg, VA. Our goal is now to raise enough money to buy the 23-acre Leesburg property and create a permanent home for the organization, where we will build a commercial kitchen and transform the produce our Growers care for on the farm into finished products that you can keep in your pantry. In this way, our Growers will learn basic employment skills they can use to work anywhere, as well as agricultural, culinary, and retail skills to be used on the farm, at home, or anywhere, really.

In 2025 we worked with over 70 people with intellectual, developmental, & cognitive disabilities (IDCD), as well as a Farm Manager, Assistant Farm Manager, and Two Crew Leaders. Our three current Crew Leaders are previous Growers, who moved up the chain into a management position. We have developed other leadership positions along the way so that our Growers have a clear path up the management chain.

Our Growers have a range of disabilities, including autism, dyslexia, developmental delays, learning disabilities, and mental illness. By encouraging self-advocacy and independent decision-making among our Growers, and by expecting them to come to the farm on-time and complete their work, our growers sharpen the skills they will need to work anywhere. Each week, we send our growers home with whatever is being harvested so they can make the connection between their work and the tangible, edible results of that hard work.

We welcome community volunteers (go here to sign up to volunteer!), as well as students from Loudoun County Public Schools, the Arc of Loudoun's Aurora School, and the Jewish Foundation for Group Homes's Makom program. We also make weekly deliveries to the Tree of Life & Western Loudoun food banks to provide food-insecure people with fresh vegetables.