Aging Strong Virtual Retreat
This series takes a proactive and positive approach to aging:
We’re all on the journey of getting older, whatever age we may be at now.
Let’s celebrate the bodies and abilities we have and learn together how to best care for ourselves to keep our hands in the soil for as long as we choose.
This time of year gives us an opportunity to step back, reflect and learn how to better care for our physical and mental health. You’re invited to participate in a unique, virtual collaborative learning circle environment for woman-identifying farmers to connect and learn together on key elements of body mechanics.
This retreat will be three back-to-back daily 90-minute sessions.
Register for the month that works best for you:​
Register once and you will get reminders for each session.
Free to attend. All sessions run on Zoom 2:00-3:30 pm CST.
All women farmers are welcome to attend, wherever you are on your agricultural journey.
Led by and for women farmers, these sessions serve up a combination of practical information, movement and connection with other women sharing similar experiences. The sessions will be led by a woman-farmer team of Laura Fredrickson-Gosewisch, Ellen Petrick and Lisa Kivirist, bringing both practical professional knowledge and personal shared experience.
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Attendees will identify benchmarks and develop a personal action plan to best prepare and protect that most important tool — ourselves! — for the next growing season and beyond. Everyone will also have the opportunity to connect with women sharing similar experiences, from farming while pregnant to self care during menopause or managing chronic illness.
Key topics covered include:
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Building flexibility & strength
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Understanding muscles & joints
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Preventing & managing injury
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Dealing with chronic pain & conditions
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Cultivating rest & recovery
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Presenters:​
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Laura Fredrickson-Gosewisch
Laura Fredrickson-Gosewisch is a NCBTMB Board Certified Massage Therapist practicing 12 years as well as a Minnesota-based vegetable farmer and Executive Director of West Side Farmers Market in Minneapolis. With a specialty in managing chronic pain, injury recovery, and prevention, she brings a passion for supporting women farmers in understanding and taking charge of proactively caring for their body.
Ellen Petrick
Ellen Petrick recently moved full-time to her Wisconsin farmstead and following her dream of a diversified homestead complete with goats, chickens and an abundant garden and orchard. Ellen brings a deep professional background in body mechanics to her new role as farmer, with over 25 years working as an exercise physiologist, health coach, and fitness educator. She is a certified Exercise Physiologist with the American College of Sports Medicine and has a Masters Degree in Exercise with physical disability and chronic disease, something she personally manages too.
Lisa Kivirist,
Learning Circle Host
A national advocate for women in sustainable agriculture, Lisa Kivirist is the author of the award-winning book, Soil Sisters: A Toolkit for Women Farmers and leads the Soil Sisters project at Renewing the Countryside. She is the co-author with her husband, John Ivanko, including Homemade for Sale, Farmstead Chef, Ecopreneuring and Rural Renaissance. For over twenty five years, Lisa and her family have run Inn Serendipity Farm and B&B in Wisconsin.
Are you a woman farmer feeling the work of the season taking a toll on your body?
Looking for practical information and ideas on taking care of your body?
Do you want to create an environment supporting healthy body mechanics for your staff?
Seeking opportunities to connect with and learn from other women-identifying farmers in similar situations?
Different from a traditional webinar classroom format, Learning Circles honor that we, in a community of women, all have something to share and something to learn, wherever we may be on our personal journey.
We welcome sharing of experiences, resources, what worked (or didn’t) for you, challenges and opportunities -- all in a safe, welcoming space. These circles are also intended to also be a regular reminder for us all during the winter season to take the time to prioritize our own care and wellness.
Space is limited so we can keep the gathering intimate and discussion-based. It will not be recorded but there will be a written summary of key learnings sent to attendees.
Some Background For those new to Learning Circles
In partnership with:
This work is supported by the North Central Extension Risk Management Education Center, project award no. 2024-70027-42470 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
