Foundations For a Living Campus
An invitation to help establish the foundations for stewardship, participation, and community life for generations.
COMMUNITY
Gather
Belong
STEWARDSHIP
Participate
Care
FUTURE GENERATIONS
Grow
Discovery
Every season at Orkestai reveals the same truth: places become meaningful when they are cared for together.
This campaign is an invitation to make that care enduring.
A Place for Reconnection
Many people today experience land as scenery, food as product, and community as something increasingly difficult to sustain.
Orkestai explores another possibility.
Here, agriculture becomes a shared practice of attention. The land becomes a place to care for together. Children, families, elders, educators, and neighbors participate in work that nourishes both ecological and human relationships.
We have been entrusted with a rare opportunity to cultivate a place where people, land, and community can remain in relationship across generations.
Why Now?
A Rare Opportunity
For years, Orkestai has grown through relationships, experimentation, and patient cultivation.
Today, a rare opportunity has emerged.
Through our partnership with New York State Parks, we have the opportunity to establish the permanent, year-round infrastructure needed to support this work for generations to come.
Moments like this are uncommon. They ask not only for vision, but for the willingness to act while the opportunity exists.
Why Infrastructure?
Our community has grown beyond what seasonal and temporary infrastructure can sustainably support.
Year-round participation, educational partnerships, accessibility and long-term care all depend upon foundational systems that do not yet exist.
This campaign is not about expanding for expansion’s sake. It is about establishing the conditions that allow the work already taking place to endure and flourish.
The Living Campus is not the beginning of Orkestai's story. It is the next chapter of more than a decade of cultivating relationships between people and land through regenerative agriculture, expressive arts, and inclusive community.
Over twelve years, that work has grown through community partnerships, public trust, and patient stewardship, leading to a long-term partnership with New York State Parks and this rare opportunity to establish a permanent public-serving place.
The Foundational Stewardship Campaign
A once-in-a-generation opportunity to establish a living campus where stewardship, participation, and community life can flourish for generations.
What This Investment Establishes
Three forms of capital work together to establish a living campus that can flourish for generations.
Campus Foundations
Physical Capital
The place that make year-round participation possible
60’ x 36’ Pavilion with Teaching Kitchen
Climate Battery Year-Round Growing Space
Agricultural Support Building (Restroom, Office, Storage)
Electrical Service & Year-Round Water
Accessible Paths, Parking & Outdoor Learning Spaces
Design, Engineering, Permitting, Project Management
$3,000,000
Organizational Capacity
Human Capital
Campus Launch
Institutional Capital
The resources that help the institution launch and endure.
The people who bring the campus to life
Staff Recruitment and Training
Program Leadership & Coordination
Competitive Compensation and Benefits
Development Capacity
Administration and Governance
Leadership Development & Succession
Program Launch & Development
Equipment and Initial Operating Supplies
Campaign & Donor Stewardship
Accessability & Visitor Experience
Operating Reserves and Maintenance
Strategic Opportunities
What This Makes Possible
The living campus creates the conditions for people of all ages to learn, contribute, belong, and return through every season of life.
Shared Purpose
A permanent gathering place allows neighbors, families, schools, volunteers, and visitors to become participants rather than spectators. Community is cultivated through returning, contributing, and sharing responsibility together.
Across Generations
Children grow into mentors. Families return. New traditions take root. The living campus is designed not only for those who come today, but for the generations who will continue shaping its story.
Year-Round Participation
Year-round infrastructure transforms seasonal programming into a year-round rhythm of learning, exploration, and shared experience, inviting people to return in every season and deepen their relationship with the land
Expressive Agriculture
Expressive Agriculture invites people to encounter the land through farming, music, cooking, movement, craftsmanship, and celebration. The harvest becomes not only food, but culture, creativity, and shared experience.
Buildings can be constructed in a season. A living campus is cultivated over generations. Together, we have the opportunity to establish a place people will return to, contribute to, and grow with for years to come
See The Vision at a Glance
While this website explores the Living Campus in depth, the poster below offers a one-page overview of the project and the foundational elements that make it possible.
Continue the Conversation
Every meaningful partnership begins differently. Some people first experience the farm in person. Others begin with a conversation, a question, or an introduction. However you arrive, we’d welcome the opportunity to explore how you can help establish a living campus that will serve people, land, and community for generations.
Questions, Ideas?
We’d love to hear from you.
Co-Founders and Co-Directors and Ex-Oficio Board Members
Joshua Marcus & Alethea Vasilas
Board of Directors
Bethany Kelsey (President)
Abby Cannon (Secretary)
Kieran Gibbons (Treasurer)
Dave Gugerty
Ashton Abbot
→ Give Now