The approximately 200-year-old farmhouse Zaitz lives in is a far cry from the trendy New York apartment she left behind. Cluttered with books, kettles, jugs and other bric-a-brac accumulated over four generations, it is a repository of her family’s history. “I visited the farm constantly when I was little,” recalls Zaitz, who grew up in New Jersey. “But I never thought I’d be living here and farming.”
At Rutgers University, Zaitz planned to follow her parents into a research career in sociology. Her mother left Duncannon in her teens to pursue a degree in chemistry, eventually working for the state in Harrisburg. Her father has a PhD in nuclear physics. “This is like the least glamorous thing his kid could be doing,” cracks Zaitz, whose older brother works in the pharmaceutical industry.
But in 2001, her freshman year, Zaitz’s life took an unexpected turn. She was hit by a car, and her ankle was shattered. She underwent painful surgery and months of physical therapy in order to walk normally. “By the time college was over,” Zaitz recalls, “I just wanted to travel.”
She visited the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Europe. During an extended stay in Los Angeles, she got a taste of the West Coast organic movement. In December 2006 her grandmother passed away.
“I come from a family of strong women,” says Stefanie’s mother, Carol, 63, who commuted from her central New Jersey home for years to look after her aging mother and the farm. After her mother passed away, recalls the elder Zaitz, “I think Stefanie saw a decision had to be made on what to do.”
That spring the younger Zaitz took an internship at Rutgers’ Cook Student Organic Farm, where she learned about sustainable farming. The experience spurred her interest in conservation, and she subsequently took a job at the Bronx Zoo–based Wildlife Conservation Society.
“That first winter after the farm,” recalls Zaitz, “I would go to my office and sit at my computer and think, ‘Ugh.’ I actually missed having my hands in the dirt.”
Zaitz had been in New York about a year when budget cuts led the zoo to extend buyout offers to its 1,000 employees.
“It seemed crazy to leave a job in the troubled economy and lose my health insurance and take the biggest risk of my life. But it was like a red carpet was rolled out for me.”
In April 2009, she moved to Duncannon part-time and resurrected her family’s farm as an organic CSA with the help of Marley Skinner and Charlton Herczegh, two mentors from Rutgers’ Cook Farm.
“I didn’t know what I was in for,” says Zaitz. “Not only was it insanely hard in the fields, but starting up a business, you have to be 100 percent enthusiastic about your product. It’s exhausting.”
Still, her new life isn’t without its rewards.
“You’re outside and it’s proactive and you see your results — 2009 was the best eating year of my life,” she asserts.
During its first season, more than a dozen people signed on for produce from Wooden Hill Farms.
“This year our goal is 20-30,” says Zaitz, adding, “In five years I’d like it to be 200.”
Meanwhile, a growing awareness of the ways small farms can benefit local communities is creating a steady stream of new opportunities.
Last summer Wooden Hill began donating excess produce to the Perry County Food Bank.
“This spring we’re going to teach people to grow their own food,” says Zaitz, who is particularly keen on hosting farming workshops for children and seeing “that click” when they realize what grows in the ground eventually ends up on their plates.
After that, says Zaitz, “Picking green beans is one of the most fun things a kid can do.”
