Our Mission
"To provide an inspirational place for people to connect with each other and the land."
This mission is fulfilled through three main avenues:
- Engaging the public in peace and justice issues. At Wagbo we work on achieving peace through a thoughtful approach to living in the modern world and a return to what is most important—including freedom for people of all walks of life, a thriving and resilient community, and a healthy natural environment. We hope to ensure that this peace is not just an ideal but an attainable goal that is shared with individuals from our local and global community.
- Teaching adults and children about our surrounding natural landscape. By holding foraging forays, wildlife tracking workshops, wild game potlucks, birding hikes, and other nature walks, we hope to connect people to the land intellectually, emotionally, and physically. We believe that fostering this connection helps people lead joyful, well-balanced lives, and helps preserve the environment for future generations.
- Promoting sustainable living on our land and throughout our community. This includes small-scale agriculture, healthy forest management, living off the grid and/or conserving available resources, and practicing do-it-yourself (DIY) and traditional skills. We provide a wide array of educational opportunities such as our Friends of the Wagbo Sugarbush (FWSB) and Wild Edibles for Ecological and Dietary Sustainablity (WEEDS) projects, skill swap events, food preservation workshops, annual cider pressing demonstrations, and much more!
We’ve shared the Wagbo mission with visitors coming anywhere from East Jordan to California, from inner city Grand Rapids to the Netherlands. We hope you will join us too! |
A Bit of History
 In 1887, Jacob and Bertha Wagbo
(pictured here) emigrated from Norway and soon after homesteaded 212 acres near the
Jordan River. Raising their three daughters- Ann, Olga, and Martha- they farmed with horses and
held great respect for the land, education and peace. Their daughter,
Martha Wagbo (1902-1992) bequeathed the family estate in trust to be
used as a place of education and calm reflection on issues of peace,
justice, nonviolent conflict resolution, and responsible care of the
environment. Development toward that goal began in 1992. Incorporated as
a nonprofit organization in 1995, the center is governed by a volunteer
Board of Directors. Martha’s wishes live on through the generous
efforts and donations of
members, volunteers and contributors.
Revisioning Session
During
the summer of 2008, the Wagbo Board of Directors invited community
members to a meeting with the purpose of revisioning Wagbo's future. As a
result of that meeting, the name of the center was changed
from the Wagbo Peace Center to the Martha Wagbo Farm and Education
Center. Furthermore, the center's mission became "to provide an
inspirational place to connect people with each other and the land." The
revisioning session also reaffirmed Wagbo's guiding values, including
acceptance, simplicity, honesty, self-responsibility, cooperation,
sustainability, and stewardship. Goals were set to engage the local
community, to advocate a peaceful style of living, to promote
agriculture on our premises and in our area, and to become a model of
sustainability. Since then, we've come a long way in achieving those
goals. We hope you will join us in making this vision a reality! |
