The all-volunteer nonprofit that supported Fox Chase Farm for more than three decades has shut down, with members saying the Philadelphia School District pushed them out of the city-owned property they helped maintain since 1990.
Friends of Fox Chase Farm dissolved on March 31, the group announced in a letter posted online. The 112-acre farm at 8500 Pine Road straddles Philadelphia and Abington Township, with two thirds of its acreage and all permanent buildings on the Abington side. The city purchased the land in 1975, and the School District of Philadelphia now runs it as an educational farm.
Fees, restrictions and a shrinking roster
Former president Karen Eble said the school district was not open to the group’s presence. “We finally folded,” Eble told The Inquirer. “The farm is administered by the Philadelphia School District and they were, I guess, not very open to us being there.”
At its peak, Friends of Fox Chase Farm drew more than 400 local families. Members grew thousands of pounds of produce for food banks each year, helped rebuild the main barn, maintained an education garden and held two annual fundraisers that brought in thousands of dollars for the farm. The group also functioned as a parent-teacher association of sorts for a 4-H program, buying equipment and lending the program money…