By Stephen Smoot
When Experience Learning established a program at Sweetwater Farms near Sugar Grove, as Melinda Brooks explains, “we were just starting with the idea of having a trail center.” As work has gone forward, they have established 12 miles of trail and opened up two miles of farm road for hiking and bicycling.
As Brooks explained, much of the first few years of work went into taking care of “deferred maintenance” and getting the property and the community center in proper shape. The center, which serves as a focal point for activities up there, “got new bathrooms, new showers, new flooring. It’s a big investment in this facility.”
Melinda Brooks and her husband, Jason, staff the Sweetwater Farms facility for Experience Learning.
Along the way, they have found other opportunities to help to develop the property and add to what Experience Learning can offer there. “We’re now figuring out how to create a space where people would want to come here.”
Expanded offerings include two primitive rental cabins on the hill above the community center. Also she added, “We installed 10 tent pads in a shaded grove area.” Initially, as she explained, people were encouraged to camp in an open field near the community center. Brooks shared that did not work well because of the more Virginia-like climate in the Sugar Grove area.
Unlike their facility at Spruce Knob with “natural air conditioning,” as she described it, the grounds at Sweetwater Farms can get much more heat and humidity than the higher elevations farther west.
Although still working to obtain recognition from the international dark skies organization, Sweetwater Farms does occupy a recognized dark skies zone. Those who camp there in the right conditions can see a brilliant array of stars, as well as the Milky Way Galaxy as it snakes across the sky. The Spruce Knob facility is much better known, however, for not only night sky viewing, but also Experience Learning “star parties.”
Jason Brooks shared that “astronomers say our southern sky (at Sweetwater Farms) is a little bit impeded by mountains and trees.”
Investments also went to infrastructure with an eye toward sustainability and reduced cost. The facility got a loan to build a solar array that not only provides ample electric power, but the monthly loan payments for the array dip below the cost they were paying for that service. The array also powers an electric vehicle charging station installed on the property.
Another innovation developed at Sweetwater Farms helps to almost eliminate food waste while also saving money on the same product. Brooks stated that they would hold events and have sometimes as much as 20 pounds of food left over, which they used to give to their “food waste pig” who simply ate the leftovers.
“We didn’t know what to do with the extra food,” Brooks explained, saying that massive amounts of leftover food needed disposal after major events such as the GRUSK competitions.
Brooks admitted that the “food pig” was occasionally not a joy to work with, so they ended up purchasing a commercial freeze dryer for foods. She described how it “takes prepared foods, pulls the moisture out, and makes it shelf-stable for 25 years. The process takes frozen foods and uses technology that instantly vaporizes the water content, removing the substance that attracts bacteria to food in the first place.
Jason Brooks showed the final products. In one bag, five pounds of cooked, shredded chicken was reduced to about eight ounces. Other bags had freeze-dried ramps and even baked ziti. He stated that even with meats, when properly rehydrated, they retain the same texture and taste as they had prior to the process.
Practically, this allows Experience Learning to use the leftover foods on their multi-day educational sessions in the forest. “We use these for our wilderness-based programs,” she explained. Backpackers can take foods made from fresh ingredients rather than hyper processed foods often sold for that purpose.
Brooks shared that she would much rather see young people eating those foods than cheap ramen noodles, chips, or other similar victuals. Additionally, it reduces the weight they must carry into the woods, creating a “closed loop food waste system” that not only reduces food waste to practically nothing, but also saves thousands of dollars a year in food costs.
The Brookses envision that in the future, they could figure ways for the public to access the freeze dryer, whether through renting their commercial kitchen at Sweetwater Farms or in some other fashion. “In August, we will be hooking up with the Pendleton County Farmers’ Market to see how we can be in service to local producers,” she said.
Brooks added that revenues “from biking and the trail are not quite enough” to sustain the facility so they seek to “diversify the revenue stream and business model,” particularly in less labor-intensive ways. She explained that “we have a staff of 20 on Spruce Knob (at the Experience Learning center there) but “only two of us at Sweetwater Farms.”
“There’s nothing like running this program in Pendleton County,” she stated. Connection to the Mon Forest Towns organization has made Sweetwater Farms a “gateway” facility to the Monongahela National Forest, but also within close proximity to the George Washington National Forest.
Brooks added that the reactions of children from urban areas such as Washington, D.C., and Baltimore to the area and the beauty of wide-open spaces cradled by the Allegheny ridges reflects a true sense of wonder. That said, many of the programs have an emphasis on bringing in local children to develop their sense of home and place.
Brooks added, “I’m so thrilled to be working for an organization that celebrates Pendleton County.”
