Processing grief through goats and accessibility
A new CAREs grant will make accessibility updates to a grief garden at the Philly Goat Project.
It’s almost easy to miss the more than 16 acres devoted to community gardens, partner farming plots, a pollinator habitat, small ponds, and a greenhouse nestled in the landscape just steps from a halal cart, charter school, and grocery store set in the busy Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia.
The quirky-yet-peaceful juxtaposition continues when, once inside the picturesque arboretum in the Germantown neighborhood, you are greeted by more than a dozen goats—from Anthony and Bebito to Ivy and Violet.
The famously social herd animals have been lovingly cared for (and shared by) the Philly Goat Project since its founding in 2018.
In addition to “typical” goat jobs, like chomping invasive plant species and weeds, the goats are part of community events and even school programs. They are also part of a relatively new garden space meant to help people process grief heal. That “grief garden” is about to benefit from accessibility updates, thanks to a Penn Medicine nurse who moonlights as a volunteer at the arboretum.
Grace and the goats
Growing up, Grace Freund, BSN, spent spring breaks at a family farm, which included tending to a herd of goats. In 2022, Freund remembered that experience—being in nature and caring for animals—when a friend mentioned that they were volunteering with the Philly Goat Project.
“I’ve always loved animals, so when they said there was a herd of goats 15 minutes from my house, I said ‘sign me up,’ Freund said, laughing. “It was a nice way to do something a little different than working in health care.”
At the time, Freund was working with Penn Medicine Hospice and has since become an oncology nurse at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. In the years since, she received two Penn Medicine CAREs grants to support the Philly Goat Project, including the most recent one, to make their “grief garden” more accessible.Grief and goats
“It’s a space that allows people to really process grief and loss in their own way, and includes a few tangible ways to do so,” said Bethany Weed, a Philly Goat Project representative who manages programming in the space.
The garden is situated next to one of the main goat paddocks and follows a winding path set under a canopy of trees where visitors can pause on wood benches for moments of reflection and remembrance. There are also interactive installations: Visitors can tie a ribbon with the name of a loved one or message to a fence, or place it in between stones in a memorial wall .
The garden also features a "wind phone,” a rotary phone affixed to a tree. It allows visitors to “talk to those no longer with us; their words traveling through the wind to reach them.”
“We try to articulate how broad grief can be—it’s not always about losing someone to death,” Weed said. “Loss is loss. It could be grieving a lost time or place, situation, health, relationship. It’s personal to everyone.”
The Penn Medicine CAREs funding will go toward clearer wayfinding and signage to identify the garden entrance, as well as railings to help make the path more accessible—for both two legs or four.
“Philly Goat Project has really tapped into a lot of unacknowledged or unprocessed grief within the communities they serve,” Freund said. “In addition to the physical garden, they have walks with the goats that are focused specifically on grief.”
Professionally guided grief walks are held for free each season, focusing on a different element each time. The summer grief walk focused on water, and goats joined participants on a guided walk through the grounds. After the walk and meditation, participants were invited to participate in a grief ritual that involved water and to share reflections on their own grief. Throughout this portion, anyone was welcome to use the grief garden in whatever way felt needed for them.Some spent time on the benches, some tied a white ribbon with a loved one's name to the memorial fence, some left flowers in the garden for a loved one, and some placed a stone in the dirt to leave the weight of the grief behind.
It's a scene that is equal parts playful and calming to have goats roaming in a paddock just feet from such a reflective place. It is also somewhat of a departure from Freund’s typical volunteer work there.
Much of that work, Grace said, involves keeping the goats on a routine: waking them up, feeding them breakfast and administering medications, and going for morning walks.
“Depending on the morning, we may also do ‘trick training,’” Freund said. “Things like hopping up and jumping down from platforms, jumping through hoops, standing on their hind legs, walking left or right, shaking a hand with their front hooves, walking in circles.”The impact of processing grief
Still, there is a connective tissue between her volunteer and professional worlds.
“As a health care worker, it can be especially tough to take that time [to grieve]. When a patient dies under your care, you often have to push your emotions down or to the side because there are other patients to take care of and other tasks that need to be done,” Freund said. “It’s important to find ways when you’re off duty to bring those feelings back to the surface so you can honor the lives lost and not become numb to the losses.”
Grief is not always a straightforward process, according to Diane Wiltshire, MSW, LSW, primary therapist in the Women’s Program at Penn Medicine Princeton House Behavioral Health.
"How we process our loss, whether we choose to do so in solitude, publicly, or on a journey that encompasses both, must remain fluid. The journey is not linear. In fact, it is quite messy,” Wiltshire said. “So, whether we choose to meander walkways and pathways with others seeking solace alongside animals gently guiding us, or if all we can do in any given moment is pick ourselves up from the floor and remind ourselves to breathe through the pain, it is important to remember that loss can happen in an instant, but recovery will be a process.”“I’m grateful for spaces like the grief garden that encourage purposeful grieving,” Freund said, adding that it “can be hard to set aside time and space for grief in our busy lives that are often not set up for reflection.”
Once the updates are made, hopefully the garden will be able to expand those opportunities to more to fully explore their losses and also connect with others.
“It's been amazing to see the ripple effects of what the Philly Goat Project does,” Freund said. “It's a place where you get to see people move their bodies, get their hands dirty.”
And also make friends with people—or goats—they otherwise may never have met.
More information is at www.phillygoatproject.org.