At Sanctuary One, people of all ages have the opportunity to volunteer on a real working farm and experience nature’s healing power firsthand. We offer educational tours that open people’s hearts and minds. We invite groups from schools and youth-serving nonprofit organizations to visit the farm for fresh air, exercise and hands-on service-learning. We help teens who are in legal trouble learn how to make better choices. We mentor interns who dream of becoming the next generation of care farmers. We promote the ethics of mindful, sustainable living. And we provide a safe, loving home to rescued farm animals and pets. It’s all part of a practice called care farming.
Care farms like Sanctuary One demonstrate how farming for health can be an affordable, natural and effective means of healing people. They serve as models for treating animals humanely and honoring their intrinsic physical and spiritual value. And they illustrate how the environment that sustains us all can be steadily improved through organic and permaculture-inspired farming practices.
At Sanctuary One, we envision a future where care farms are as commonplace in the United States as they are in Europe. For example, in the Netherlands there are more than 1,000 established care farms. Great Britain has hundreds, and there are dozens more in other European countries. We hope to enliven and motivate our visitors at Sanctuary One and, ultimately, inspire more Americans to start up care farms in their communities.
