+8 An Organic Lifestyle
An Organic Lifestyle
An Organic Lifestyle
An Organic Lifestyle
MONTEFABBRI, Italy—Schoolchildren dressed in bright rainbow colors dart across the yard of an orange stone house as a kind-faced woman opens a wooden gate. This is La Fattoria del Borgo (the village farm), a small farm located at the top of a winding dirt road, where visitors find hillside fields full of apricots, cherries, and strawberries, children rolling grains of wheat between their chubby hands, and smiling seniors carrying freshly-picked sage plants.
Twenty years earlier, the same kind-faced woman, Olessia Tambovtseva, and her husband, Enrico Libanore, discovered a space for their family home and business in a 129-year-old house overlooking the rolling green hills around Montefabbri, a quick 25-minute journey from Urbino. Reminiscing about that discovery over coffee on a recent day in June, Tambovtseva said they house-hunted throughout the mountains of towns lining the coast of the Adriatic Sea. She explained that it was crucial to find a place with open fields both for future planting and future activities.
Success can mean different things to different people, said Tambovtseva, looking over at Libanore. To them, it meant embracing an organic lifestyle. Connecting with nature, making products from scratch, and being surrounded by fruits and plants of all kinds are a few elements of this style of living.
Two roofed outdoor spaces, a patch of open green space, and leveled-log seating make up the designated activity areas closest to the house of La Fattoria del Borgo. Walking through the outdoor tunnel that connects the family’s living space to the activity areas, Tombovtseva said their emphasis is to be outside as much as possible. Holding bees, climbing on uneven rock, and clambering through tall grass fields are just a few of the many activities offered to the young and old alike.
“It’s important to have a certain quality of life. We believe that we have reached it in a place like this.”
Tambovtseva said a big part of their lifestyle is promoting Montessori, or hands-on, learning, that is supported by the government.
“It’s important to have a certain quality of life,” added Libanore. “We believe that we have reached it in a place like this.”
Their former business selling furniture was left dusty and empty once Tambovtseva and Libanore decided to pursue their dreams of educating people on farm life and nature. From the start, they intended to include educational activities. This resulted in them searching for a home with enough outdoor space for energetic children to play between activities. Years of house-hunting and a hundred lots later, Tambovtseva and Libanore fell in love with the space La Fattoria del Borgo offered. Two years after securing the home, cement mixers and cranes rolled onto the patchy grass to begin building the on-site product shop, indoor and outdoor activity areas, and appropriate laboratories for both learning and production.
“We were ready, but the place was not,” said Tambovtseva. “So, the activities went on all the same.”
For a determined woman, three years was far too long to wait to begin with her plans. Tambovtseva did not allow renovations to delay her passion for educating the youth on nature. Teaching in any classroom that would let her, working summer camps, and further educating herself occupied Tambovtseva’s time until La Fattoria del Borgo’s wooden gates opened for the first time in 2001.
More than a center for activities and education, La Fattoria del Borgo is a complex of countless fields sprouting grapes, apples, and peaches, to name just a few produce items they grow.
“Generally, it’s understood that if we wanted to work as a small farm we had to be multifunctional,” said Libanore of the farm’s success producing jams, honey, and fruit syrups in addition to running educational activities.
Juggling two sides of their business led to Tambovtseva and Libanore’s shared involvement in both. Although Libanore is more often in the fields with dirt under his nails from a long day of work, he can also be seen towering over kindergarten students listening attentively to his explanations of farm life. And while Tambovtseva runs between children covered in flour, seniors spreading jam, and preparing coffee for her guests, she can also be found in the beating sun picking plants for the day’s activities.
Working from dawn to dusk has paid off: Tambovtseva said profits from producing goods have helped fund some of the farm’s newer projects.
Being as close to nature as possible was not an idea Libanore and Tambovtseva credit themselves with. As he stocked shelves with freshly-made products, Libanore explained their inspiration for outdoor educational activities came from a European movement towards this style of learning.
Outdoor learning could not have happened without the success of the production side of the farm.
The push for hands-on learning in Italy did not come from bustling cities like Rome or Florence, but from the quiet rural region bordering the Adriatic Sea, Le Marche. Though Libanore first proposed including the learning-style because of a European trend he heard of in the 90s, he says the location they settled in, Le Marche, is responsible for the extent of the farm’s activities. The region highly encourages this learning style, incentivizing teachers to adopt the ideas by offering free training, according to Fondazione Chiaravalle Montessori, a private foundation. The region’s push for this learning style has touched La Fattoria del Borgo in recent years. Though nature-based learning has been a part of the farm since the beginning, backing from the regional government has helped La Fattoria del Borgo’s recent expansions.
Outdoor learning could not have happened without the success of the production side of the farm, which allowed Tambovtseva to get a jump start on Montessori activities. More unique than the learning style being used, Tambovtseva and Libanore used profits from their farm to self-fund their expanding activities.
Though the high-pitched laughter of children has existed on the farm for over a decade, the presence of those 65 and up is still considered new five years after its launch. Deciding to take a business risk by using their own funding to promote a previously unheard-of project, La Fattoria del Borgo opened its gates to the seniors of the surrounding area to become closer to both nature and one another.
“The project is a way to stay active,” said loyal farm volunteer Vanda Focarini a Montefabbri resident who has been visiting consistently with her husband for five years. “It’s a way to go out and do something.”
Whether its cooking fresh pasta, strolling through the fields, or discussing the day’s activities around the outdoor table, on any given day participants of the original project, known as Active Longevity, can be spotted in every nook of La Fattoria del Borgo.
With inspiration from the region, Tambovtseva immediately began to mimic the existing activities of the farm, but it now had twist—the age of the participants. Older people slowly but surely flocked in to experiment with interactive activities like creating essential oils while getting to know members of their community. Because it had never been done before and was proposed by the region, despite the farm’s self-funding, the program had a set end-date: December 2016. Not imagining the success of the experimental program, both Tambovtseva and participants were disappointed when it ran its course.
Never one to wait around, Tambovtseva worked to get La Fattoria del Borgo a new classification that would allow them to continue with projects for older people. Not long after she set her mind to it, La Fattoria del Borgo was classified as “community agriculture” by the Le Marche region. The new classification brought more than just a title, with it came money.
“Le Marche is one of the most forward going” said Kay Mongardi when asked about the region’s push towards helping the older people of their community in comparison with the rest of Italy. Mongardi,a friend and neighbor of Tambovtseva and Libanore, has only been an active participant as of recently.
Two years after the end of their initial project, the farm’s gates once again opened in December 2018 for the seniors of the Le Marche region, but this time funded by the government.
“We wanted the new project to be an evolution, not a repetition,” said Tambovtseva. In order not to just redo their previous project, the farm emphasized more social interaction this time around.
Old members helped teach new participants, seniors interacted directly with the schoolchildren, and members of the Montefabbri community merged with those from other communities. More than just immersing themselves in nature, Tambovtseva wanted to make a push for creating greater social connections between community members, no matter the age or community they belong to.
They make visitors of all ages feel at home by giving the signature double-cheek kiss right away and bringing out the coffee tray and homemade bread and jam.
Mongardi is a widow with an empty nest and moved to Montefabbri from the United States 10 years ago. Though she loves where she lives, living alone surrounded by green space made her feel disconnected at times.
“It gave me a connection to the community” said Mongardi about her recent discovery of the farm’s newest project. Neighbor Tambovtseva invited her to one of La Fattoria del Borgo’s lunches about two months ago, and Mongardi has been a part of the new project ever since.
The new project, called Community Agriculture, goes further than La Fattoria del Borgo’s reach. La Fattoria del Borgo is just one of eight groups in the Le Marche region involved in the Programma Sviluppo Rurale, or Rural Development Program. The involvement of older people at La Fattoria del Borgo is their focus of a larger overarching program whose goal is to see longevity in older people. Longevity does not mean the farms want to literally lengthen the lives of the participants, but instead help them make the most of their lives.
As an informational pamphlet from Agricoltura Social: Percorsi Di Innovazione (Social Agriculture: Innovation Paths) explains, “Today for many ‘elders’ there is still so much to do, time to give a new meaning to one’s life, but also to review one’s social values, recover the best of oneself and also offer it to others.”
Combining the hands-on educational activities from the Active Longevity project and new plans to build community relationships is how La Fattoria del Borgo believes they can add to this project. In order to reach a larger community, Tambovtseva works with new groups in surrounding communities. Twice a month, two new groups unload from buses at La Fattoria del Borgo from Pesaro and Montecchio, supported by partner Associazione Nonno Mio, a group that encourages seniors to become involved in their communities to avoid isolation. When these groups come, members of La Fattoria del Borgo’s group transform from students to teachers and demonstrate things like making bread and honey.
Only just beginning, project participants have three more years of relationship-building ahead of them. Because the project is still new, it will continue growing over the next few years Tambovtseva said with a clear twinkle in her blue eyes.
The focus on nature and hands-on activities in education with older people remains new but seems to have a promising future based on the smiling faces and positive experiences of participants.
It even expands beyond Italy, with Dr. Cameron J. Camp, a psychologist from the United States who has studied Montessori learning with seniors for more than 20 years. Camp found himself in Le Marche many years ago when the region first began promoting Montessori learning and has remained involved through the newest project by visiting La Fattoria del Borgo and meeting some participants.
Despite their happiness with the reach of the project, Tambovtseva and Libanore prioritize keeping a welcoming atmosphere for local community members.
The comforting atmosphere Tambovtseva and Libanore maintain has long contributed to their success. Employee Alessandra Cerri said she was first drawn in to the farm 15 years ago when visiting her husband Emanuele Paceschi at work one day. Paceschi was recording the experiences of participants in the Active Longevity project. Cerri said she was attracted by the environment Tambovtseva and Libanore presented.
They make visitors of all ages feel at home by giving the signature double-cheek kiss right away and never hesitating to bring out the coffee tray and homemade bread and jam. From Tambovtseva and Libanore’s hospitality to the kids, seniors, and animals constantly running around, it is difficult to feel anything but happy when on the farm.
An even bigger project is on the horizon as the Le Marche region proposed using outdoor and interactive activities with those who have Alzheimer’s. The hope is that the same positive experiences discussed by current seniors would also happen with new participants who have Alzheimer’s.
However, Tambovtseva’s priority is improving one step at a time and not becoming involved in too many things. She said they plan on focusing on their current seniors program until its end before taking on another project.
Tambovtseva explained, “The project we have is already so rich.”
Translation of interviews and other language assistance by University of Urbino students’ Luca Cocozza, Francesca Massari, Tonia Perreca, and Bianca Sartini.
Video by Sara Amil & Sabriya McKoy
