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The Sanctuary helps people of all ages experience nature's power to heal by providing them with an opportunity to volunteer on a real working farm. Working with animals and gardening has been widely shown to lower blood pressure, ease depression and stress, and help lonely people establish therapeutic relationships. There is also growing evidence that the experience provided by a care farm enhances self-esteem, improves social skills, facilitates rehabilitation, teaches responsibility, improves physical health, and fosters a sense of purpose. We encourage you to talk to your doctor or therapist to find out if volunteering on a care farm might be good for your health.
Because it takes time and effort to train people work safely around animals and farm equipment, we require volunteers to make a commitment to serve for a reasonable amount of time. To be perfectly honest, the one-time or occasional volunteer does not really help us because of the learning curve. It's the regular volunteer who "knows the drill" who provides the most effective help. For important safety reasons, those under age 18 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.
Our volunteer jobs are mostly simple but important tasks related to taking care of animals, farming and gardening, and general clean-up. For these kinds of jobs you must be in good shape and not suffer from allergies to animals or hay. Because most of the work on the farm is physical in nature, this is not the right place if you have lower back pain or other similar medical issues.
If hands-on farm work is not your cup of tea, we also have a variety of clerical and technical volunteer opportunities listed below. Some of them may be done from the comfort of your own home. These office-work jobs are just as important as bucking hay or mucking out the barn.
For more information, please email info@sanctuaryone.org, or call us at 541.899.8627, or download our volunteer application and email or mail it to us.
Volunteer Opportunities:
Sanctuary Volunteers: Provide hands-on help with farming and animal care, including scooping the poop, grooming, feeding, cleaning animal housing, repairing fence lines, transporting animals and/or materials to and from the Sanctuary, etc.
- Assist with transporting donations of hay to the Sanctuary
- Assist with the transportation of animals to and from vet appointments or picking up supplies in town
- Provide training to horses
- Feeding the animals
- Provide regular grooming, socializing, and clean living quarters for all the animals
- Provide tours to groups who visit the Sanctuary
Gardening/Grounds Care Volunteers: Lend a hand with landscaping, planting, pruning, weeding, irrigation, clearing brush, and general clean up.
- Assist with irrigating our 55 acre sanctuary
- Help plan and implement an organic garden for the sanctuary
- Using the brush hog and tractor to do general property clean up of weeds and yard debris
- Transporting animal waste using the tractor from the barn to its recycling location
Construction Volunteers: Provide help with projects such as painting and building habitats for animals and humans.
- Building a chicken coop
- Building and improving existing loafing sheds for the animals
- Barn maintenance and repair
- Install raised garden beds
- Ongoing fence repair
- Whatever our sanctuary manager has on the list of priorities for that day!
Community Outreach Volunteers: Assist with general community outreach by attending public functions, networking with local businesses and other like minded organizations to help educate the community about our organization and why it's necessary. In addition, assist with procuring in-kind gift donations and recruiting volunteers.
- Attend the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce and Medford Chamber of Commerce meetings on behalf of the Sanctuary
- Search craigslist, webspirit, and freecycle for in-kind gift items the Sanctuary could use
- Assist with the recruitment of volunteers and to help maintain our volunteer database
- Know a group that would like to visit the sanctuary? Help coordinate a tour or volunteer party!
Technical Skill Volunteers: Help provide the infrastructure that keeps the sanctuary running on a daily basis, including
- Write press releases and work with local media to help spread the word about the sanctuary
- Put your web design skills to use to keep our website looking sharp
- Help write grants
- Provide professional services like legal assistance, bookkeeping, graphic design, architectural design, and much more!
- Take photographs and/or videos of the animals to help maintain our website and newsletter
Committee Volunteers:
- Resource Development Committee: Assist with creating, developing, and implementing special events and fundraisers for Sanctuary One. Committee meets on an as needed basis.
- Outreach Committee: Identify and implement marketing opportunities to help promote the Sanctuary to the public. Committee members may perform a variety of tasks, including those listed for community outreach volunteers above.
- Animal Care Committee: Committee develops and makes recommendations on animal intake, care, facility and adoption protocol. Members provide site visits to potential adopters and perform follow up visits to ensure successful adoptions. In addition, members serve as the animal experts to the Sanctuary Manager and act as a resource when issues arise.
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