Sanctuary One at Double Oak Farm is the first care farm in Southern Oregon. The mission of Sanctuary One is to provide a refuge for animals and a healing place for people while promoting environmental stewardship.
Double Oak Farm abuts thousands of acres of national forest.
A scenic hiking trail provides access to the Siskiyou Mountains.
Care farms are farms where people, animals, and the earth work together for mutual healing. They are well established in Great Britain and northern Europe, but are new to the United States. Sanctuary One didn't invent care farming; we're just one of the first nonprofits to take the idea and transplant it to our country.
We believe that the earth is alive, that every rock, every tree, every single blade of grass, even the clouds above and the deepest depths of the sea, are all part of the fabric of life that weaves us together.
We believe that a farm can do more than grow food for people's bellies; it can heal our bodies and lift our spirits, too, if we work together with animals and the earth for mutual healing.
We believe that all animals deserve to be treated with respect and kindness, and that it's our moral duty to provide a sanctuary for farm animals and pets who have suffered from cruelty and neglect. We will find them a new loving home if appropriate, or we will give them care and shelter for the remainder of their life.
We've named the farm in honor of a pair of magnificent
Oregon White Oak trees growing at heart of the land.
Double Oak Farm is located on 55 scenic acres alongside the Applegate River in the Upper Applegate Valley. It has a large irrigated pasture, a lovingly restored historic barn, and plenty of room for spacious animal habitats. Mule Creek, a pristine spring-fed creek with steelhead trout and rare salamanders in it, runs alongside the acreage.
We help heal people of all ages by providing them with an opportunity to volunteer in animal therapy and horticultural therapy activities. Working with animals and gardening has been widely shown to lower blood pressure, ease depression and stress, and help lonely people establish therapeutic relationships.
Helping take care of friendly farm animals has theraputic benefits and is fun, too!
Sanctuary One also serves the community as an invaluable agricultural service-learning site for local school children. Sanctuary One is a real working farm and as such has the ability to offer schools a unique, low-cost field trip in a safe but exciting environment for children. The combination of interacting with a variety of farm animals in a natural environment while developing healthful and practical life skills such as how to garden, how to use tools, basic carpentry, humane animal care responsibilities, how to comprehend life cycles and food webs, etc. can be a truly transformational experience for students, many of whom have never had an opportunity to experience simple pleasures like planting a seed, harvesting a fresh vegetable, building something with their own hands, or getting to know a friendly farm animal.
We love teaching school children how to treat animals with respect and kindness.
With your help, we can provide a safe and caring home for animals that are rescued from unimaginable cruelty and neglect; we can do something about the nature deficit disorder that more and more children are suffering from because they are constantly plugged into a computer instead of outside interacting with the natural world and animals; we can show people that animal-assisted therapy and gardening can be a cheap, natural, and effective way to lower blood pressure, ease loneliness, and reduce stress.
Please help Sanctuary One at Double Oak farm be a place where people, animals, and the earth work together for mutual healing. You can make a donatation now or or subscribe to our E-mail bulletin to receive monthly updates.
