Celebrating Health and Freedom in the Heart of Pennsylvania Dutch Country
The Pennsylvania Chapter of CHD participated in the 13th Annual Family Days on the Farm this past weekend. The free event, organized by the Communities Alliance for Responsible Eco-Farming (C.A.R.E.), celebrates and educates farmers and consumers about health-supporting, nutrient-dense, and chemical-free foods, humane treatment of animals, and independent living.
The event draws over 4,000 people each year, with approximately 1/5th of these coming from the English community, a term the Amish have used for outsiders for three centuries. The Amish speak Pennsylvania Dutch German, and one is surrounded by this dialect when waiting in the large lines to help yourself to the generous presentation of free food offered over the two-day event.
This year’s event was held on Elam and Linda Stoltzfus’s 46-acre farm in Gap, PA, a community rich in Amish small farms and farmettes. The farm-to-table movement is exploding in this region of the country, and the Amish and other groups in the plain community are seeing unparalleled prosperity accompanied by zero unemployment. The success has begun to impact the Big Ag cartel’s bottom line as more and more people are waking up to the fact that their supermarket food safety has been significantly compromised, propelling the demand for direct access to organic food untouched by the cartel’s designs at the FDA.
CHD has had a presence at this fair since 2021, when Robert Kennedy Jr. was invited to give a rousing keynote address. YouTube has since removed this speech for violations of its community guidelines. The PA Chapter has sponsored and tabled the event ever since.
The first person to approach the chapter’s table on Friday was farmer Amos Miller. Miller talked at length about his ordeal with the FDA and the PA Dept. of Agriculture, which continues to hold Miller under sanction for selling his milk directly to his farm’s membership rolls without a state permit . Miller, whose products are required by many on doctor orders and who has never had a reported customer complaint over his twenty plus years of business, is adamant that he will not be forced to hold a permit to sell his products to his farm’s membership.
Miller has been put in a very difficult position because of his defiance, not just by his government but also from within his own community. On the one hand, Miller, whose grandfather was jailed for his civil disobedience in the fight for the right to an Amish education, is being oppressed by the state for his commitment to his community’s high standards for healthy food. On the other hand Miller faces consternation steming from the strong-held belief within the plain community of the act of Gelassenheit, where every effort should be taken to preserve the peace and calm in the community and one should not do anything that might draw attention to one’s self.
Mr. Miller expressed emense gratitude for the support he has received from across the country, as well as for the reluctant but growing support amongst his fellow Amish. He confessed that without this support, he would have been destroyed both financially, emotionally, and spiritually.
As has been the chapter’s experience at past Family Days events, the information and book table was constantly engaged with visitors seeking information, purchasing books and t-shirts, and relaying stories of tragedy, heartbreak, and struggle after encounters with vaccines and other allopathic interventions that may take the lives of 2,000 Americans each day. No other event that CHD PA tables has as much brand recognition as we encounter at Family Days.
Family Days on the Farm had 15 tented pavilions, of which five were dedicated to vendors and exhibitors. One tent was dominated by the Eastbrook Well Spring Care health clinic and its partner organization, Turnpaugh Health. Well Spring opened late last year, about 5 miles outside the city of Lancaster. It is a first of its kind “hospital” that is run by a nonprofit organization with a board made up of Amish bishops and medical professionals.
The focus is on functional and integrative medicine approaches to health and offers family medicine, urgent care, chiropractic, nutrition, dentistry, cardiology, and other “alternative” treatment practices in its 60,000-square-foot facility. A maternity ward will be added soon. We were told that Robert Kennedy Jr. has been in contact with Dr. Chris Turnpaugh, the lead physician, to keep abreast of the latest developments.
CHD PA will be reporting more in the future regarding this new horizon in health care. Our chapter’s membership is already making pilgrimages to Well Spring, as it is open to the English as well as servicing the plain community. CHD PA first reported on this important development last summer.
Coincidentally, our last visitor on Saturday was Tracy Thurman, an HPV-injured attorney working for Robert Barnes’s law firm. Barnes, an attorney who has worked with CHD in the past, represents Amos Miller, defending him from the PDA. Ms. Thurman also discussed the Miller case she is helping defend. Miller told CHD PA that he chose Barnes’s firm because it was the only firm that would defend his actions under his private membership association (PMA) structure. Ms. Thurman discussed the ignorance of this important business arrangement within the judicial system and how there are no precedents.
Besides demonstrations of horse handling and care, dairy techniques, portable saw mills, regenerative pasture walks, sheep herding and shearing for children, camel rides, weaving demos, and a huge corn box for children to sink into, there were terrific lectures on beekeeping, foods for toddlers and for mental health, and an extremely informative talk on food and medical freedom by Ms. Thurman. CHD PA has been informing our Amish friends about the war brewing against their independence and livelihood both here and in Europe. Ms. Thurman brought this essential message to an audience of about 500.
CHD PA believes in strengthening our relationship with the Amish and plain communities. Their example of resilience, independence, truth and wellness is powerful and inspiring. And in a time of ever heightening crises this group forms a strong and dependable rear guard in the Health Freedom Movement.