Oasis Farms

09/30/2025

Follow your big idea.

In 1910, a South Carolina teacher named Marie Samuella Cromer had a bold idea: give rural girls not just lessons, but land. Each girl received a tiny 1/10-acre plot and learned to grow, can, and sell tomatoes.
They weren’t just planting seeds in the soil—they were planting seeds of independence.
These “girls’ tomato clubs” quickly spread across the South. Members, ages 9 to 20, learned how to farm, manage money, and run their own small businesses. One girl harvested 2,000 pounds of tomatoes, earning \$78 (about \$2,470 today)—a fortune for a young woman at that time. Another saved \$60 in the bank (about \$1,880 today), proudly funding her own expenses.
The clubs taught much more than farming. They gave girls responsibility, confidence, and financial freedom in an era when women’s opportunities were severely limited. Every basket of tomatoes was proof that they could contribute not only to their families but also to society.
Marie Cromer’s simple idea transformed lives and challenged expectations. It showed that when you give young women tools, skills, and trust—the harvest is far greater than what grows in the ground.

09/10/2025

After President Trump’s remarks this week generalizing domestic violence crimes as “little fight with the wife” - we believe we must use our civic responsibility to speak freely.

If crime is truly to be eliminated, and domestic disputes stand in the way, then the question must be asked: What is being done to end violence in the home? Calling it a “lesser crime” is not a solution. It is a dismissal of the suffering of millions of women and children whose experiences behind closed doors you will never know.

Women’s rights in America have always been tied to the fight against domestic violence. The first major domestic violence campaign became a national Prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s. Through the Temperance Movement - in a time when women were forbidden to name their husbands’ abuse outright - women finally found language to speak about what alcohol did to their homes. That campaign grew into suffrage, and into the first wave of women’s political participation. Our voices were born from the courage to say violence in the home is unacceptable.

Domestic violence is not a “pesky little crime scene.” Not when forty-five percent of women in Kentucky alone have experienced domestic violence — and we know many more go unreported. That means nearly half of families in this country are impacted by abuse. It is not lesser. It is not private. It is devastating, generational, and urgent.

At Oasis Farms, we believe the measure of a leader is not whether crime statistics look tidy on paper, but whether every family can live in safety and dignity. What if we cared more about the people experiencing and committing these crimes than about how the numbers look for one man’s political gain?

We’ve seen leadership in Kentucky that takes this crisis seriously. Governor Andy Beshear has consistently supported survivors through statewide initiatives, including the release of the Kentucky Domestic Violence Data Report each year — shining light on the thousands of families impacted, the protective orders filed, and the services provided across our state. That kind of leadership matters, because data isn’t just numbers — it’s lives, families, and futures.

Survivors deserve more than dismissal. They deserve to be seen, believed, and supported with housing, employment, and community care — the very work we are building here in Kentucky.

Domestic violence is not a barrier to someone’s political bragging rights. It is the barrier keeping families from living safe, healthy, and free — with the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness promised to every American. We will continue to raise our voice until that truth is no longer ignored.

08/19/2025

A safer Kentucky is possible when we're looking towards that future together. This is great news.

🚨 A nationally recognized Lethality Assessment Program is expanding to Kentucky, thanks to leadership by ZeroV and Merryman House.

This evidenced-based strategy developed by the Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence reduces intimate partner homicides and serious injuries.

Equal partnership between victim service providers and law enforcement is a cornerstone of the program and the Scott County Sheriff's Office and Frankfort Police Department and Emergency 911 have signed on.

The program equips these law enforcement offices with 11 screening questions to help identify victims at the highest risk of being killed by an intimate partner. When high risk is indicated, officers immediately call the GreenHouse17 crisis hotline from the scene.

Survivors will speak directly with an advocate about safety planning and available services.

“This program is proven to save lives,” says Darlene Thomas, our executive director. “We’re grateful for the partnership of law enforcement and sister organizations to bring the first Lethality Assessment Program to central Kentucky.” 💜

07/30/2025

Ready to make some noise? This is a rally cry.

A music festival happening in Irvine this weekend aims to do more than entertain — it's raising awareness for survivors of domestic violence.

06/19/2025

💚 What I Want All of My Children (Inner, Too) to Know About Love
(A letter to you, to them, to all of us still learning)

You grew up watching love look like sacrifice.
You saw it look like staying—even when it hurt.
Like swallowing feelings to keep the peace.
Like silence for the sake of survival.
Like chaos that passed for passion.
Like being chosen only when you became smaller, more manageable.

Love looked like something you had to earn.

You heard “love” and saw anger.
Heard “love” and screaming.
Heard “love” and “I’m sorry”—but never saw effort or change.
You watched her abandon her needs, and eventually herself, for everyone else.
You saw her blamed for giving up.
You saw her cry.
But they still called it love.

You learned to chase it.
To mistake intensity for intimacy.
To confuse permanence with safety.

But my dream for you—
My dream for all of us—
Is different.

My dream is that love finds you calm.
That it holds space for all your feelings—not just the convenient ones.
That it never asks you to disappear to be worthy.
That it sees your youness and says, “Yes. That.”

I hope your love listens more than it speaks.
I hope it takes responsibility, not power.
I hope it chooses you—not once, but every day.
I hope it helps you grow, without making you shrink.

I hope it feels like trust.
Like peace.
Like something you recognize—not something you have to prove.

And I hope—more than anything—
That you give this love to yourself first.
So everything else is just a reflection of what you already know to be true:

You are worth loving.

We’re learning this together.
Every day.

Love,
Us

06/12/2025

We Need To Talk About A Silent Sinister Statistic

45% of women in Kentucky have experienced domestic violence.
That’s nearly half.

Here’s the part that almost never gets said out loud:
If nearly half of women in Kentucky have experienced violence in their homes—then an even more devastating number of our men have committed it.

Because that’s just what’s reported.
It doesn’t include the women who have or never will tell.
It doesn’t include the 1 in 7 men who are victims themselves.

What we’re facing isn’t just a crisis of broken hearts.
It’s an epidemic of unsafe homes.

And if we’re going to change that, we can’t keep acting like the only people who need healing are the ones who survived it.
Some of the people causing harm are doing it because they were taught that harm is love.
Because they were told real men don’t cry.
Because they saw power used instead of presence.
Because they learned early on to repress, control, dominate—or disappear.

This doesn’t excuse the violence.
But it explains the silence.
And that silence is killing us all.

We need more batterer intervention programs.
More stress and anger management that doesn’t end with jail.
More cultural permission for men to feel before they explode.
More brave people—of any gender—ready to say:

“What I saw growing up wasn’t love. I want to do better.”

We all have unlearning to do.
And everyone deserves a chance to heal. We can talk about it.
We should talk about it.

06/09/2025

We Need To Talk About How Our Culture Impacts the Statistics
(And How It Could Be the Cure)

45% of women in Kentucky have experienced domestic violence.

That’s not just a number. That’s culture. That’s what happens when a thousand quiet beliefs live in our bones:

“Stand by your man.”
“God hates divorce.”
“She shouldn’t have pushed him.”
“What happens in this house stays in this house.”

In Appalachia, many of us were raised in homes where survival and silence walked hand in hand. Where women stayed home. Where love meant sacrifice. Where loyalty to family mattered more than what that family felt like behind closed doors.

And through it all, we were watching.
We were learning what relationships looked like.
We were learning what love does—and what it excuses.

This isn’t about blaming tradition, or religion, or gender roles outright. It’s about asking: what did those messages teach us?
And are we brave enough to unlearn what harms us?

Because here’s the thing:
The same culture that helped bury the truth is the one that can bring it back to light.

Appalachians care. We show up. We give the shirt off our back.
What if we gave our attention, our voices, and our questions too?

What if the next generation didn’t have to guess what love looks like?
What if we told the truth—and let the healing begin?

06/05/2025

We Need to Talk About Gaslighting & Other Crazy-Making

When we don’t have the words, it’s easier to believe we’re the problem.

That’s why language matters—because naming what’s happening helps us survive it. Gaslighting, love bombing, breadcrumbing, triangulation—we’re living in a time where we finally have the vocabulary to describe what so many of us have endured in silence.

This is for anyone who’s ever asked:
“Am I overreacting?”
“What just happened?”
“Is it really that bad?”

You’re not crazy.
You’re not alone.
And yes—it really is that bad.

Swipe through to learn the names of common manipulation tactics used in abusive dynamics.
Maybe it gives you the language you’ve been missing.
Maybe it helps someone you love.
Maybe it makes someone think twice before they deflect, deny, or gaslight again.

Either way: we need to talk. Share this if you ever needed this vocabulary list.

06/02/2025

We Need To Talk About the Time It Takes to Heal
Healing on the Job

Employment that centers healing is revolutionary.
Not because healing is trendy—but because it’s rare.
Especially in the workplace.
Often even at home.

A mother is expected to keep her children safe, to plan and pursue a path to freedom when they're not, and to recover quietly, quickly, and while working full-time if they succeed.
But what if you already were?

Because mothering is work. Full-time.
Unpaid. Unacknowledged. Unrelenting.
It’s feeding, wiping, comforting, carrying.
You're holding the pieces of everyone else’s world together—even if your own feels like it’s falling apart. Without so much as a 15 off the clock.

Mothers are expected to endure, start over, raise children, and somehow still smile.
They’re praised for their strength while being denied rest.
Told to heal while there’s still lunch to pack, appointments to make, court dates to face.

They’re holding it all together with one hand—and a broken heart in the other.

And no one calls it work.

But it is.
And at Oasis Farms, we believe that kind of work deserves to be seen, supported, and sustained.

We operate as a justice enterprise—a business model that doesn’t just sell a product, but makes a promise:
To honor labor that’s been erased.
To make healing part of the job.
To turn pain into power and growth into livelihood.

Here, the harvest is more than produce.
The product is more than food.
The impact goes deeper—because the people growing it are healing, building, and reclaiming their lives in the process.

Social enterprise validates what traditional systems have ignored:
That good work is happening all the time in kitchens, in quiet tears, in moments of survival.
And when we invest in that kind of work, we don’t just make something—we make change.

We’re following the light of those who came before us, like , whose founder Becca Stevens reminds us:

“Love is the most powerful force for change in the world.”

They lead with love. They share their wisdom. Because when we center healing in our communities—and in our economies—we don’t just help survivors.
We help everyone.

If love leads, what else becomes possible? Let's talk about it.

05/29/2025

🌱 We Need to Talk About Healing Through the Land

The land knows something about survival.
And if we let it—
it will teach us how to heal.

In Eastern Kentucky, there’s no shortage of stories about hardship.
But when it comes to food?
The stories are quieter—and just as serious.

Many of our communities no longer have grocery stores.
Fresh food is 30+ miles away.
What’s left are convenience stores, gas stations, dollar chains—
shelves full of processed food with long shelf lives and no real nourishment.

And in a place where we were raised to believe that God made our bodies from the soil—
we’ve lost touch with how to feed that body with what comes from it.

This is why we farm.
But more than that—this is why we steward.

We don’t just want to grow food.
We want to grow systems of care.

We use permaculture—a design practice that listens before it acts.
That works with nature, not against it.
That asks not “what can I take?” but “how can I give back while feeding people well?”

Permaculture lets us grow food that’s:

Nutrient-dense
Affordable
Regenerative
And rooted in relationship, not exploitation

It also lets us offer work that means something—
Where women are not just employees, but stewards of the land, of their lives, and of each other.

This farm isn’t about charity.
It’s about creating systems where survivors can thrive—
and communities can access real food without needing a car, a credit score, or a miracle.

We grow more than crops here.
We grow dignity.
We grow roots that hold.
We grow people who know how to care for what’s fragile—because they’ve had to learn how to care for themselves.

🖤
This is healing through the land.
Layer by layer.
Ripple by ripple.
Root to rise.

05/26/2025

We Need to Talk About Childcare Deserts
(And how they keep survivors from rebuilding)

What’s a childcare desert?
It’s a place where there are more kids than spots—
where access to care is limited, far away, or unaffordable.
Many rural communities in Kentucky—and beyond—fit this definition.
But for a mother leaving abuse, this isn’t just inconvenient.
It’s a barrier to survival.

When she walks away from the violence, she’s often walking away from the only support system she had—however broken it was.
She’s starting over.
Many times, without a job. Without transportation.
And often, for the first time in years, trying to enter the workforce again.

But where do you find the skills for work that can actually sustain you?
Where do you find the time for jobs that still don’t pay enough or an education for "better opportunities"?
And when you do find work—who’s caring for your children while you’re doing everything you can to survive?

This is what doesn’t get talked about enough.
We say “get back on your feet.”
We don’t say what that looks like when every hour you’re gone, you’re wondering if your kids are safe.
We don’t say what it means to take any job you can find, even if it barely pays for gas—because it’s something.
We don’t talk about how childcare isn’t just about convenience.
And we need to talk about how deeply that gap is failing women.

You can’t rebuild your life if no one can watch your children.
You can’t work healing hours on a broken schedule.
And you shouldn’t have to choose between survival and motherhood.

That’s why childcare is not a luxury.
It’s not an afterthought.
It’s infrastructure.

It’s what allows a mother to rebuild without breaking herself to do it.
And if we care about recovery—about healing, about safety—
we have to talk about this too.
🖤

Let’s talk. Stay with us.