Stone's Throw Farm Co.

We are Jack and Trish Stone. We operate our sustainable farm, small grocery, along with a fleet of mobile farm stands. We offer fresh, seasonal fruit, herbs, vegetables, and we produce our own pickles and jams. We do not use synthetic fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides in our garden beds. We also partner with other small, local farms like us, to offer a deeper selection of product, such as eggs, meats, honey, dairy, etc.

We became a non-profit organization, 501 C3, in June 2020. Our mission is to provide work opportunites for people with disabilites, or special needs. We currently have 18 teens/young adults (interns) working with us in four areas; kitchen, farm, farm stand, and our small store, Stone's Throw Texas Grocery, in southwest Tarrant County.

Kitchen: We produce our own pickled vegetables and jam. Interns help with the water bath canning process, jam making, filling and packing jars, fruit and vegetable prep, knife skills, following recipes, sterilizing equipment, washing produce, cleaning preparing the kitchen, and basic food safety.

Farm: planting, harvesting, weeding, cultivating, crop planning and care, feeding animals; goats, ducks. Right now, we are growing our late summer/early fall crops of cantaloupe, okra, green beans, black-eyed peas, pumpkin, corn, tomatoes, and peppers.

Farm Stand: greeting, customer service, packing orders, sales skills, making change, social skills, closing the sale.

Stone's Throw Texas Grocery: We proudly opened a brick and mortar location in January, 2022. Interns help with customer service, stocking shelves, inventory counting, bagging groceries, sales, and making change, handling transactions. 

In our store, we offer and specialize in Texas grown, seasonal produce, meats, eggs, and dairy. We sell our pickles, jams, other jarred goods and foods made by local artisans. We offer baked goods sourced from a local bakery. Occasionally, we host events/fundraisers on the property, such as; family picnics, food trucks, and live music.

Our Needs

We’d like to continue to grow and offer more wage paying positions to our current and future interns.

Stone’s Throw Farm Co’s mission is to empower and train individuals with special needs through providing support-based unpaid internships. These internships can lead to paid employment, including shifts in our kitchen, garden, retail store, and our mobile farm stand that services the Fort Worth area.

An intern transitions to a paid employee when they demonstrate the ability to work independently. We need funding to create more paid employment opportunities for our current and future interns. 

At Stone’s Throw Farm, we currently have 18 interns.

Currently, one third of our interns earn a wage. All interns are trained one-on-one to learn skills needed to perform the duties of their shift. The other two thirds either prefer to volunteer, or are working towards paid employment. Paid employment is achieved when the intern is able to perform work duties correctly and independently. Additional funding would provide more employment opportunities for our current and future interns.

We strive to have consistent financial support to fund this growth. For some interns, this can be a six week time period of training, for others, it can be much longer.  Because we are a small organization, we can tailor the training to match each individual and their specific needs.  

Our intern shifts at the grocery and farm stand include cashiering, customer service, inventory tracking and counting, stocking, and merchandising. 

In the garden, interns assist with daily harvests, cultivating, planting, weeding, pruning and other maintenance. 

In our kitchen, we make pickles and jams. Interns learn knife skills, hygiene and kitchen cleanliness, kitchen safety, how to follow a recipe, measure ingredients, and product labeling.

Most importantly, we have noticed over the years, the biggest impact we make is social growth for our interns. They make friends, learn to interact with other people outside of their inner circle of which they can become very comfortable. We hope to be the first step for an intern who wishes to join the workforce someday, out there in the big world.