Dawn Farm director Jim Balmer recently spoke with an alumna from the Ypsilanti Township-based substance abuse treatment center.

The woman recalled that she managed the center’s pig barn 25 years ago, and told a story about a how a feeder pig got stuck in a fence and gashed its leg. As the manager of the barn, she took seriously her responsibility to help heal the pig.

“That was first time in her life that she was paying more attention to something other than herself, and she still remembers that as being a turning point in her recovery,” Balmer said.

Requiring addicts seeking treatment at Dawn Farm to work on the center's farm and in the community garden is helpful on several levels, Balmer said. It helps clients get exercise and provides purpose in daily life. And, Balmer said, because addicts are notoriously self-centered, it gets them “out of themselves” and focused on the world around them.

The clients have managed to produce some of their own food each summer, but Dawn Farm is seeking to become as self-sufficient as possible by significantly expanding its garden and food production.

To that end, the center recently hired a full-time farm manager to expand its garden, launch new farming programs and begin seeking community volunteers to help make it all happen.

The 64-acre farm is also the site of the main treatment center. Dawn Farm, which opened in 1973, also has a second treatment center. Together, the centers provide capacity for about 70 residents. The company additionally provides 150 beds in transitional sober housing throughout the county.

“This is a very busy place,” Balmer said, adding that in 2010 Dawn Farm treated 3,000 residents in some capacity. To help feed that many mouths, the company brought aboard Grace Yoder, who Balmer described as having “ten green fingers, not just one green thumb,” to maximize food production and minimize waste.

Yoder described herself as a “hobby gardener,” then added she does “intensive, organic gardening." She doesn’t till soil, but uses raised beds to improve soil health and because they’re less labor intensive.

Her chief goal at Dawn Farm is employing new techniques to maximize the farm's yield without increasing labor.

“They haven’t used the farm as efficiently as they could have,” Yoder said. “They had a pretty big garden, but a lot of it went to waste.”

The farm and garden includes heirloom tomatoes, squash, winter squash, beans, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuces, spinach, corn, soy beans, hens, pigs, hogs, llamas, goats, sheep ducks, rabbits and more.

Yoder plans to can and store as much food as possible in order to provide for the main facility year-round, and supply fresh food for residents and transitional housing clients.

Yoder said she isn’t exactly sure what achieving that goal means in terms of the number of hands needed throughout the growing season, but she said it will require significantly more help from the community than in the past.

Later in the summer, Yoder will arrange regular canning and preserving workshops, and she said there is talk of launching Dawn Farm-brand pickles and jams.

“There are a number of challenges ahead of us and I'm not totally sure what it’s going to take to meet them … but we’ve got plans,” she said.

Already the farm has held several volunteer days, which attracted around 60 people total.

Balmer said Dawn Farm is also focused on recycling everything possible, and used recycled stationery “before it was fashionable.” He said farmers are known for not wasting anything, and Dawn Farm is even exploring ways to reuse “gray water,” which is water that remains after one washes their hands or water used for laundry.

The last two Dawn Farm buildings to be built were constructed with energy-efficient materials, and the company has received several awards for its efforts. Dawn Farm’s leaders are also discussing adding a greenhouse and solar panels.

“We would like to become the greenest treatment center in the United States,” Balmer said.

For more information on volunteering at Dawn Farm, check its garden blog at http://dawnfarmgarden.wordpress.com.

Tom Perkins is a freelance reporter for AnnArbor.com. Reach the news desk at news@annarbor.com or 734-623-2530.