New owners for Jubilee Farm

NextGen Communities, the new owners of Jubilee Farm Ecology & Spirituality Center west of Springfield, has pledged to continue to protect and preserve the farm’s natural areas as well as honor certain existing collaborations.

It’s a promise that continues what former owners the Dominican Sisters of Springfield began at the 164-acre center that has pasture, wetlands, woodland, walking trails, a small orchard and a mowed-grass labyrinth.

Jubilee Farm’s sale to NextGen Communities, a nonprofit founded by the Sommer family of Springfield, was announced on June 12.

“We chose to purchase Jubilee Farm from the Dominican Sisters to honor our parents’, Ken and Mary Sommer’s, lifelong commitment to the Springfield community, to carry forward the Sisters’ ecological stewardship, and to advance our mission for NextGen Communities,” Ken Sommer said in a statement. “Just a few fields from the Frank and Eleanor Sommer family homestead and Riddle Hill, this farm – owned by the Dominican Sisters for the past 27 years – is now in our family’s care.”

Jubilee Farm’s sale to NextGen Communities is considered a transfer between stewards and caretakers of the land, according to Sister Beth Murphy, director of communications for the Dominican Sisters of Springfield.

“Even to talk about ownership, we really considered ourselves stewards of the land,” Murphy said. “Legally, we owned land, but there’s another sense in which we really can’t own that. It’s a God-given gift to us, and so we thought of ourselves as stewards and caretakers for all the years that we had it.”

The Dominican Sisters purchased the property that became known as Jubilee Farm, located at6760 Old Jacksonville Road, Springfield, “in the spring of 1999 as a commitment to honor one of the injunctions of the church’s celebration of year of Jubilee: let the land lie fallow,” according to an article by Sister Sharon Zayac, who lived at Jubilee Farm since 1999. Zayac and Sister Anita Cleary began the ministry.

“There are fewer sisters with the physical ability and desire to live here,” Zayac explained in a statement. “After a year-long process of study and analysis, we came to the realization that we could best foster our legacy here by transferring the land to others’ care.”

Honoring protections, relationships

The sisters moved in March from Jubilee Farm. Caretaker John Murchorski will stay part-time as needed and then will return to work at the Motherhouse, Sacred Heart Convent in Springfield.

Among things remaining with the farm are a llama, two alpacas and chickens. The property also includes the 120-year-old farmhouse where the sisters lived, a ranch home that housed offices and provided space for small-group gatherings, plus the Creative Arts Center.

NextGen Communities will honor an easement established with the Sangamon Conservancy Trust banning the land’s use for commercial purposes.

Jubilee Farm has collaborations with the Lincoln Land Association of Bird Banders and the biology club at University of Illinois Springfield.

Murphy said she is glad that the Sommer family will keep the collaboration active because bird banding activities at the farm are popular. The association had its 10th and final banding day of the 2026 Spring Midwest Migration Network bird banding season at Jubilee Farm on May 22.

The association posted on May 27 on Facebook its appreciation of the Dominican Sisters’ support and “their dedication to conservation and restoration.”

“We also are thrilled to hear that the new owners have the same vision/mission for this unique property, and we look forward to continuing our banding efforts here well into the future,” the post read.

Murphy reflects fondly on her time at Jubilee Farm.

“Personally, I spent a lot of time there. … I made my retreat there,” Murphy said. “I would go out, usually in the fall, and just have a week’s silent retreat. I would stay at La Casa and spend my days just walking and taking in the beauty of the place.”

Murphy was walking up a hill one day when she “saw a deer do something I’ve never before or since seen a deer do.”

“It leapt vertically into the air, right up out of the field,” Murphy said. “The grass was long. It came flying straight up and straight down. I don’t think I’d ever seen that before.”

The new owners of Jubilee Farm will respect the beings who live there and the land, Zayac said.

The Sommer family is most excited about deepening current partnerships and forging “new ones with local organizations to build more expansive, community-based programming – including the possibility of a farm school,” Ken Sommer said.

“Once we complete those discussions, we will relaunch the Farm under a new name with a strategic plan,” Ken Sommer says in a statement. “The initial mission for the organization is as follows: the future of Jubilee is where curious minds flourish, land regenerates and community gathers – a year-round center for ecological education, community building and spiritual retreat, rooted in the enduring belief that caring for the Earth forges a pathway to a more just, connected and sustainable world.”