Yellowstone Farmstead Grows Vegetables & Community
“We have bad reception, terrible Wi-Fi, and you’re five minutes from Yellowstone National Park. Your room comes equipped with a can of bear spray, and don’t walk near the apple trees at night. If you can hack it, we’d love to have you.”
This is the pitch Sage LeBlanc, sixth-generation farmer and owner of Yellowstone Farmstead, gives potential new team members. The 8.5 acre, organic agritourism operation in Paradise Valley sells their produce to restaurants, hospitals, schools, and more, stretching from Gardiner to Bozeman. Along with being just a stone’s throw from Yellowstone National Park, Sage’s operation offers a unique benefit: free on-site housing for farmworkers.
Many farms, particularly in high- tourism areas, struggle to keep employees due to a shortage of accessible housing.
“Park County and Montana in general became really popular as a destination [during and post COVID-19]. I live in a [place] where there are entire neighborhoods in the wintertime that are completely empty because every single one of them is an Airbnb,” says Sage.
The consequence of a housing shortage is a staffing shortage. Without a place for labor to live, many small businesses closed.
“I really got to see the impact of the housing market on these restaurants,” said Sage. “I’m delivering to ‘mom and pops’ that are closed for two days out of the week because they don’t have enough employees. And it’s not that they don’t want to work there or that the money’s not good. It’s that there’s nowhere to live.”
Even when housing is available, affording it on a farm worker’s salary is a challenge of its own. On average, farm workers in the United States earn around $16.62 per hour, about 52% of the average hourly wage for all workers in the United States.
Seeing these consequences firsthand, Sage knew she had to take action. She came up with a bold and creative solution to expand her farming operation and reinfuse her beloved community with life.
In 2024, Sage approached a local religious organization that owned an out-of-use farm and offered to lease the property. On the farm was a greenhouse, a barn with equipment, and bunkhouses with enough space for sleeping 10 people. After many hours of meetings, the lease was finalized, and Sage spent the winter restoring flooring, fixing leaks, and replacing sinks. The community contributed sheets, dishes, cutlery, and more to furnish the space.
In March of 2025, the farm was ready for the upcoming season. It just needed workers. For this step, Sage turned to social media. Sage posted a TikTok video explaining their vision for a work-housing exchange. The response was stunning.
“We said, if you want to volunteer on the farm for 15 hours, we will provide you a place to stay. And all the people who had wanted to work for all these organizations came pouring in, and it turned out we had 4,000 applicants for these very few rooms.”
Instead of paying a wage, Sage exchanges volunteer work for housing. With this arrangement, the workers can seek other employment in the community, sustainably reversing the local labor shortage, while still having time for personal endeavors.
“If you’re just volunteering for 15 hours, even if you have a part-time job here in town, you still have a lot of time to go off and do the things that you want to do. You can pursue the things that make you human when you have time to do so and a community around you that supports you.”
Many of the people who have stayed on the farm since then have come from various backgrounds and carried different goals. But they’ve had one thing in common: the desire for connection. “There’s a lot of sickness in the world right now. It’s a sickness of the heart, and everybody’s seeking community,” says Sage.
Throughout the year, Yellowstone Farmstead cultivated many opportunities for connection. Along with filling jobs at the local restaurants needing labor, the team pulled together to provide rich, on-farm educational experiences for the community. They worked with nearby schools and organizations to offer pollinator programming, seed-saving days, and farm-to-table dinners.
During the SNAP disruptions in fall 2025, they secretly, and sometimes not-so-secretly, delivered food to neighbors needing support. And they continue to regularly donate produce to food banks, pantries, and other food assistance programs. Farm workers were so moved by their season that they collaborated on a plan to fix up an additional living space so that one more person could experience the impact they had.
“Our whole theme of the farm is that sustainability isn’t just an agricultural practice. It is a community mindset,” says Sage. “And man, I’m so lucky to have this awesome community.”
Yellowstone Farmstead is the 2025 recipient of Abundant Montana’s Jane Kile Memorial Scholarship. The scholarship is awarded for projects that seek to be part of the solution for a more sustainable Montana, in honor of Jane Kile, a conservationist and pioneer in Montana’s organic and community-supported agriculture movements. Sage plans to use the $1,200 grant to restore an additional living space for a future farmworker. Learn more and submit an application for the 2026 Jane Kile Memorial Scholarship at: abundantmontana.com/jane-kile-scholarship
Read about the Past Jane Kile Memorial Scholarship Recipients Here!
Written by:
EMILEE WOOD
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