With your help, Koinonia Farm is going to plant a new 40 acre pecan orchard. That is 800 new pecan trees!
As with all our orchards, these trees will be kept happy and healthy with only biological methods. We work from the soil up using compost tea and other amendments. Healthy soil means healthy food for the trees and for those who buy our pecans.

Sponsorship is $150 per tree. This will allow us to prepare the soil, set up the irrigation, acquire needed supplies, tools, and equipment, cover biological amendments for three years, and purchase the tree itself.
You can sponsor a tree in honor or memory of a loved one and we can provide a certificate acknowledging your sponsorship.

To learn more about sponsoring a tree, visit our Year of the Pecan webpage.

Or you can make a donation here-

Every home should have its “Christ Room” and every parish a house of hospitality ready to receive the “ambassadors of God.”   —Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin

Hospitality has been a part of the faithful life since earliest biblical times—after all, God hosted us in the Garden of Eden. The story of Abraham and Sarah, who offered hospitality to three strangers, and then learned that they were hosting angels unawares, is an ancient call to all people to offer hospitality generously, even to strangers … especially to strangers. Hospitality has been part of the Christian faith from its earliest time, when the believers shared meals together and with others, and later, as the monasteries were founded, pilgrims and sojourners found rest and protection within their walls.

At Koinonia, hospitality has been a part of our lives since our founding. In fact, it is the one ministry that has never changed here. No matter the ups and downs, we have always greeted visitors with a warm, “Hello!”

Way back in 1942, visitors came to learn about Christian community, to see our farming practices, and to participate in the work of reconciliation of all people. They still do. Each year we host hundreds of guests and visitors. We hope you’ll be in that number.

To learn more about ways to visit click here.

Please support this project with a donation.

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We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools. —Martin Luther King, Jr.

In the first brochure Clarence Jordan and Martin England wrote about the founding of Koinonia Farm, they highlighted the internship as a major component of their plan. It was not an internship in farming though there was plenty of work to do, but rather an internship in community living. We continue today to invite people of all ages to apply for the program. There are three internship terms a year — spring, summer and fall. In one term not too long ago, the youngest intern was 20 and the oldest was 91. Diversity is a part of life in community. During the seasonal internship, some interns apply to stay for an additional year.

Sponsoring an intern provides funding for one intern during a three month or one year stay. Interns do not pay anything for room, meals, field trips, study materials, and other expenses during their stay. They are also given a small allowance, if needed, to cover any extras while on the farm.  We are always in need of individuals, churches and other organizations willing to financially sponsor an intern. $2,000 pays for one three month intern and $8,000 pays for one year-long intern. Simply donate that amount below and it will go to sponsor the next internship term at the farm. If you cannot fund an intern for entire term, partial sponsorship is very much appreciated as well.

To learn more about the Internship Program visit our internship page. For more information on sponsoring interns or donating to the internship program, please contact us at donate@koinoniafarm.org.

DONATE IN SUPPORT OF THE INTERNSHIP PROGRAM

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The first supermarket supposedly appeared on the American landscape in 1946. That is not very long ago. Until then, where was all the food? Dear folks, the food was in homes, gardens, local fields, and forests. It was near kitchens, near tables, near bedsides. It was in the pantry, the cellar, the backyard.  –Joel Salatin

We are committed to feeding the hungry physically and spiritually. Some day we hope to grow all our own food feeding not only those who live and visit here, but regularly share the surplus with those in need. Food is something we have been able to share, but as our numbers grow and the harvest increases, it is our plan to continue to share in bigger and broader way.

We take stewardship of the earth seriously. As stewards, our work is to protect the environment—the land, the air, the water, the plants, the animals, the people—all of God’s good creation. We work to grow healthy food in healthy soil. We use no pesticides, herbicides or fungicides. We grow vegetables, blueberries and grapes. Our cattle are grass fed and our chickens and pigs are pasture raised. We are in the midst of a major experiment to grow our pecans using biological methods. The focus is to infuse the soil with life using compost tea among other amendments and to use beneficial insects to help fight the pests that attack the trees. Koinonia hopes to be a “demonstration plot” for growing pecans without harmful chemicals. Pecan farming is a major industry in Georgia. If our experiment works, it will do much to protect the environment and to improve the health of the soil, plants, animals and people. Koinonia is proud to be working on this experiment with Betsy Ross and Sustainable Growth Texas. Read about the accomplishments of this company here and come visit Koinonia and see the work being done at the farm.

Thank you for donating to help our efforts in sustainable agriculture.

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Consider the advice of your elders: not because they are always right, but because of the wisdom they have gleaned from being wrong. –Native American Proverb

We invite elders from Americus, Plains, throughout Sumter County to join the Circle of Friends. They meet regularly for fellowship, field trips, educational programs and even exercise and entertainment. Koinonian Kathleen Monts capably heads up this ministry and is much beloved by all the members of the group.  Under her guidance, the Circle often visits shut ins and performs other community service.

Koinonia is an intergenerational community. We celebrate the lives of babies, of elders and of everyone in between. By showing us how to live a full life in the twilight years, elders participating in the Circle of Friends help us continue to cherish all life as sacred.

To find out about joining the Circle or donating to this ministry, please contact Kathleen Monts at kathleen@koinoniafarm.org.

Please support this project with a donation.

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Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering. —Hebrews 13:3 (NIV)

The Book of Hebrews in the New Testament calls us to remember the prisoner as though we were in prison with them. At Koinonia, we try to live out this mandate. These days we make regular visits to Stewart Detention Center, provide and deliver backpacks containing a change of clothes for those being deported and conduct an active ministry of correspondence with prisoners from across the United States.

Stewart Detention houses undocumented workers. Koinonia members and interns visit usually once a month. We have an opportunity when we go to meet one on one with a detainee. Many are trucked in from long distances and have no family or friends nearby. They tell us of their loneliness and boredom as well as the poor conditions of this for profit prison.

Our visits led to another opportunity to serve. One man, who was in his 40s, wrote to us in perfect English, that he was being sent back to the country of his birth. He had been in the United States since he was 5-years-old, but he was not a citizen. Caught up in the criminal justice system on a non-violent offense, he was going to be sent back to Central America where he had no family, no friends, and he spoke no Spanish. He would board a plane in his prison jumpsuit and receive a bag of clothing when the plane landed in his country of origin. Koinonia Farm now assembles backpacks and delivers them on a weekly basis. They are only allowed to contain one pair of pants, two shirts, two pairs of socks, two boxers, and a pair of shoes.

Koinonian Elizabeth Dede is our primary letter writer. Many of the men and women receiving letters have been corresponding with us for years. Some are serving life sentences and we are one of the few connections they have with the outside world.

We appreciate donations of backpack and clothes. Each assembled backpack costs approximately $50 so monetary donations are very much appreciated.

Needed items —

*   Bags: any zip-able airline carry-on sized bags
*   Shirts: medium and large
*   Pants: waist size 30, 32, 34
*   Shoes: size 8, 9, 10
*   Socks
*   Undershirts: medium and large
*   Underwear: waist size less than 36
*   Cash to purchase any of the above

Please support this project with a donation.

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It is not enough to limit your love to your own nation, to your own group. You must respond with love even to those outside of it. . . . This concept enables people to live together not as nations, but as the human race. —Clarence Jordan

Koinonia has always been about the work of peacemaking and reconciliation. Firebombed, shot at and boycotted in the 1950s and 60s for its belief that African Americans should be treated as brothers and sisters, the community continues to work for reconciliation among all people today. Whether through hosting an interfaith dialogue, teaching about Fair Trade, participating in peace efforts in Palestine and Israel, Koinonia continues to do what it can with the resources it has to work for peace.

Please support this project with a donation.

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Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you tells him, ‘Go in peace; stay warm and well fed,’ but does not provide for his physical needs, what good is that? —James 2:15, 16

Our work at Harvest of Hope is another example of building relationships and helping others off the farm. Harvest is an all-volunteer food pantry serving the poor and hungry in Americus. Once a week, Koinonia members, interns and sometimes our guests help at the pantry, sacking food, sorting dry goods, greeting people, doing intake and carrying the bagged food to cars.

To learn more about Harvest of Hope click here.

Donations you designate for this ministry will be used to help Koinonia grow and supply Harvest with additional food.

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For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.  –Matthew 25:35

CSM provides for the poor of Sumter County by offering financial assistance, help with utility bills, and by giving referrals to other services in the area, such as the Harvest of Hope Food Pantry. Koinonia members, interns and sometimes our guests rotate with others from the area opening the office, greeting people, answering the phone, doing intake, and by offering friendship.

CSM is a program of the Sumter Area Ministerial Association. Koinonian Norris Harris served as SAMA’s president for many years and remains active.

To learn more about CSM click here.

Please support this project with a donation.

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