T he L og thelog@taboracademy.org
Tabor Academy’s Student Newspaper Volume 92, Number 1
October 2017
Table to Farm: Sustainability in Practice Tabor's former furniture gets new use by Maddy LaCasse
Photos by Hannah Strom
(Clockwise from left) Round the Bend Farm’s conference room, classroom, and Desa Van Laarhoven
The biggest change for the Tabor Community this school year, besides the new scheduling of the academic day, is our brand new dining hall. Most of the community is so enthralled with the new chairs and tables that few stop to wonder what the dining hall did with the old ones. Mr. Sirianni, however, did not just throw our tables and chairs away, but instead donated them to Round the Bend Farm, a new nonprofit farm in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, where they are being used as part of their movement to practice, encourage, and educate about sustainability.
When remodeling the dining hall, Mr. Sirianni emphasized how important it was to him that the tables and chairs did not “ just end up in the trash” and go to waste. Will Saltonstall ’82 of Saltonstall Architects put him in touch with Desa Van Laarhoven, Executive Director of Round the Bend Farm, who was remodeling her farm, in a way that reflected her passion for sustainability. She, like Mr. Sirianni, also did not want perfectly good tables and chairs to go to waste, so she took them to the farm where they have found a new home in classrooms used to educate the surrounding community about sustainability and to encourage an appreciation for nature. On a tour at Round the Bend Farm, walking around the newly constructed buildings, Desa talked about the farm’s mission and remodeling process, showing that she practices what she preaches. In addition to sustainability, the farm’s other three main missions are to: “value diversity, not just in terms of race, but also in nature and
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All-a-Eat-o, p. 2. Three championship seasons, p. 3.
farming; model nature; and redefine wealth.” She practiced all four of these beliefs throughout the renovation, by “using everything in its fullest form,” which Desa and the farm believe is the best way to promote sustainability. She spoke about how she was willing to endure more difficulties and work harder to promote sustainability in her new buildings because she has made “sustainability a priority” in her life. When the builders were installing the wooden floors in the classroom, they would keep asking her if she wanted to throw out the pieces of wood that were shorter than the rest or had slight imperfections, but she insisted on using the wood in its fullest form. She emphasized that, to her, “it is common sense to use all you have” and she hopes to inspire this philosophy in the community by sharing her way of life. With the new renovation, which includes a large classroom built with local wood, a kitchen for producing and teaching about healthy, fresh food from the farm, bathrooms with composting toilets, solar panels providing power, an exquisite tile floor made with extra tiles that people had lying around, and Tabor’s tables and chairs, the farm is on a mission to educate the community and promote sustainability through leading by example. Tabor’s old tables and chairs did not end up going to waste in a landfill somewhere, but instead will be used to help the passionate, hardworking team at Round the Bend Farm on their mission to empower the local community through teaching and modeling sustainability.
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