The Westbay Community Action Farm, located on a two-acre portion of the 66-acre Warwick-owned Barton Farm, has a new manager – Cranston School Committee member Steve Stycos.

The farm grows approximately 10,000 pounds of food that feeds 3,000 households each season, according to Westbay’s Executive Assistant Liz Kelley.

President and CEO Jeanne M. Gattegno said she plans on increasing the yield to 12,000 pounds this year.

Once a dairy, Barton Farm was purchased for $1.5 million by the city in March of 2001 from Cold Spring Realty.

Director of Food Services Larry Coughlin said Stycos was picked for the job because “he had the right combination of skills.”

“Part of the job is being able to build with the community. To get people to volunteer takes people skills. Past managers have been good workers but didn’t have the people skills,” he said.

Coughlin said he believes Stycos has those people skills.

Coughlin said that the farm usually has about 25 volunteers during the season.

According to Gattegno, the farm attracts many different types of volunteers and workers.

“Last season we had a group of kids three days a week through workforce development. We also have URI gardening student volunteers and we employee elderly people through a national program SER,” she said.

The farm will not participate in the workforce development program this season, but they hope to add gardening to the curriculum or the daycare located on the property.

The manager position, formerly held by Ray Klein, is a part-time position that pays $15,000 a year.

Westbay runs a farm stand once a week to offset the cost of the managers salary. Gattegno said that the position of manager is necessary to continue the growth of the farm.

“We started out slowly. We intend to grow bigger and bigger each year. I can’t do that without the assistance of someone there who knows what they’re doing,” she said.

Stycos already plans on getting that done.

“Last year, the farm expanded a small amount, I hope to continue that expansion,” he said.

According to Coughlin, Stycos will work 40 hours a week from March to November and reduced hours during the off-season.

Stycos said that he has no immediate plans to change the way things are done at the farm, but that he has ideas for some new crops this season including carrots, onions and peas.

“I’m also going to stop growing crops that didn’t work last year, he said.

He gave corn as an example of a crop that did not work last season. He also said that he is looking into the possibility of growing berries, but that it would take a lot of work.

The process of adding berries, he explained, would be to have an expert look at the farm, talk with the city and come up with the funds to grow the new crop.

Though he is working on the planning process for the upcoming season, Stycos doesn’t officially become the manager until March.

Prior to his appointment as director, Stycos spent several years at Zephyr Farm in Cranston. He also helped start the Pawtuxet Village Farmers Market.

He has served on the Cranston School Committee for seven years. One of his projects has been to improve the nutritional value of school meals.

He initiated a program that allowed local farmers to sell food, such as apples, corn and squash, directly to the school department. This program also enabled Confreda Farms in Hope to donate fresh corn to be husked so schools could offer fresh corn as a meal option.

Though many towns now take advantage of similar programs, Stycos said that Cranston was the first to do it.

According to their Web site, Westbay Community Action is a “charitable organization that educates children, feeds seniors and responds to any number of emergencies that can occur to an individual, single parents or family.”

For more information about the Westbay Community Garden or to volunteer, please email info@westbaycap.org or visit http://www.westbaycap.org/farmstand.asp.