Ten Initiatives for Our First Decade

The vision for the Liberty Hyde Bailey Center has been born out of conversation. Central to our theory of change is that the work emerge with and alongside stakeholder communities, rather than being imposed from without, and for that reason we have long hesitated to articulate concrete programs of action. However, conversations have now been ongoing for long enough that we feel ready to share some of our current aspirations.

We have assembled ten likely projects that we currently imagine for our first decade of work, and they are now available as a “Vision of Work” on this website. We hope you will give them a read, as they demonstrate in more concrete terms the varied ways that the Center will host extensive programming as well as organize it across the state. Each of these programs have origins in collaboration and discussion, whether in our retreat a year ago in the summer of 2025 or in strategy meetings with our new partners at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County in the past few months. A few date back decades, long before the project’s current incarnation began to unfold, in what were then the still abstract dreams of individuals who hoped the historic Bailey properties might some day become available as a public resource.

Those dreams are now nearing reality. Please take a look at our current Vision of Work, and if you would like to be involved, we hope you will reach out or donate.

Patio gardens at the Bailey complex on Sage Place, with the Carriage House visible in the back right, in a photo taken by Bailey featuring a double-exposure image of his face. Image courtesy of the Liberty Hyde Bailey Museum & Gardens, South Haven, MI.