Where Community, Courage, and Animal Agency Reshape the Meaning of Care
Lancaster County is known for its rolling fields, its cultural traditions, and its long history of agriculture. But tucked within this landscape is a different kind of farm—one that reimagines what human–animal relationships can look like when exploitation is removed from the equation. Lancaster Farm Sanctuary (LFS) is not simply a rescue operation; it is a living argument for a more compassionate world.
Founded with a clear-eyed understanding of what sanctuary work demands, LFS nonetheless grew into something larger than its founders expected: a community hub, an educational space, and a model for what ethical agriculture isn’t, simply by existing. Where industrial farming normalizes suffering, LFS normalizes tenderness. Where factory barns hide their residents, LFS introduces them by name.
Sanctuary work is often romanticized from the outside. But inside its barns, pastures, and medical rooms, the work is equal parts joy and grief—celebration and vigilance—devotion and exhaustion. It is the kind of work that reveals who animals truly are when they are allowed to live for themselves, not for markets.
To understand this complexity—the culture, the emotional weight, the victories, and the daily decisions rooted in animal agency—The Humane Herald invited the Lancaster Farm Sanctuary team to speak directly about their journey. Their answers offer a window into the evolving ethics of sanctuary life, the realities of caring for survivors of industrial agriculture, and the deep lessons animals continue to teach the humans who protect them.
A Conversation on Compassion, Community, and the Lives We Overlook
Origins & Evolution:
1a. Was there a turning point in the early days of LFS when you realized it was becoming something bigger than you first imagined?
1b. Looking back, has the mission of the sanctuary evolved in ways you didn’t anticipate?
LFS:
We were inspired to start Lancaster Farm Sanctuary because we had seen and appreciated the work of other sanctuaries too, so we kind of knew what we were getting into and the scope/size of what we hoped to build for animals through the years. But we were surprised by how much immediate community support we had from the very beginning. From the very first volunteer day, we’ve had more people wanting to join this community and help us help animals than we had anticipated!
Sanctuary Culture & Daily Life
2a. What is one behind-the-scenes routine or tradition at the sanctuary that people might not know about?
2b. What’s something visitors are often surprised by when they see sanctuary life up close?
LFS:
There are so many! The day-to-day is full of chores but also little routines and fun—like singing personalized songs to the animals, very individualized and specific petting and snuggling rituals, elaborate measures to keep the animals safe and give them the most agency possible etc.
For example, Jimmy, one of our ponies, will let you walk him out to his pasture in the morning on a lead rope, but he refuses to be walked with the lead when he comes back in at night. So instead we have to construct a big corridor with netting and temporary posts so he can run back in freely like a wild stallion. It’s so much extra work but he loves it! And we love to see him happy. There are stories like that for almost every animal and what happens to provide them care in their pasture areas here! We just try to make things go as safe, easy, and delightfully as possible for them.
Resident Stories & Animal Agency
3a. Is there a resident whose journey changed your understanding of healing, resilience, or animal intelligence?
3b. Have you witnessed an example of animal agency— a choice, a preference, an action— that shifted how your team approaches care?
LFS:
Ahh, there again are so so many! Every single animal we have rescued has unique needs and preferences. It’s important to read and research, but there is nothing we could read in a book about what each animal needs us to support them.
Early on, we once rescued a young piglet and when she was well enough to go out with the other older pigs we had, we were scared because they had been extremely abused and were so much larger than she was. They had also been rather scared with us so far, and we knew they were still adjusting. And frankly, we had heard they might accidentally hurt her.
But once big old Charlotte met baby Shelby, she was like a new person! So happy, so thrilled to let her chew on her nose, zoom all around her, and snuggle up to her to sleep at night. We watched the baby show Charlotte how to root in the dirt and play and be a pig. It was a big lesson for us not to believe the animal ag industry’s conveniently popular myths about these species. To watch for ourselves with our own eyes to see who they are and to learn/listen to what they tell us they need.
Emotional Realities of Sanctuary Work
4a. What part of sanctuary work feels the heaviest emotionally?
4b. What brings you the most joy or hope on difficult days?
LFS:
The heaviest emotional toil is being surrounded by animal suffering—from the terrible “backyard” exploitation that is so plain to see and the enormous industrial factory farms, windowless warehouses where we know all too well who and what is inside. It is passing truckloads full of frightened filthy animals on their way to horrific slaughter every single day that we cannot help. The nonstop stream of messages asking us to take animals that we cannot say yes at that time. To be so very keenly aware of the nonstop hell farmed animals are facing… And to be still just relatively powerless to stop it.
To have been doing this work in our community and still have friends and family who have not been willing to look at the plight of farm animals and change their ways, but instead continue to support the industries abusing them.
The greatest joy is the animals we can save. It’s spending time with them, focusing on helping grow their joy. And to appreciate the lovely community of humans here and elsewhere who do care about them! We could not keep going without the caregivers and team of people here who show up through all types of weather to do this hard, physical emotionally challenging work with us on the animals’ behalf.
Community, Local Relationships & Impact
5a. Is there something uniquely “Lancaster County” that shapes sanctuary life, for better or for worse?
5b. Have you had any unexpected allies, supporters, or community partners?
LFS:
We think a lot about Lancaster County doing this work! Being from here, we are deeply familiar with the characteristics of the people and the way the (food/farm/community) systems operate.
For several reasons, it is extremely community-oriented. “Buy local” is literally kind of like its own religion here haha. People here also have extremely high morale and enthusiasm for doing what they see as “good work” of all kinds. Of course they have their own definitions!
The surrounding Commonwealth was founded by Quakers and frankly friendliness (both at a surface level and as a way of life) can be felt to persist to this day too!
We actually think all of those factors may help the sanctuary. People here seem proud that their local sanctuary is thriving, they want to be part of helping animals in need have a happy ending, and generally, we still believe that most people do not want to harm animals unnecessarily.
There is just still such a disconnect with what the purpose of other animals is, like existentially. Even non-religious people around here believe unquestioningly that animals are here for us to do with what we wish. That of course, is not changing fast enough…
Challenges, Needs & Critical Insights
6a. What is one challenge you wish supporters understood more deeply—something that isn’t obvious from the outside?
6b. If resources were unlimited for one day, what would be the first upgrade or change you would make?
LFS:
We hope people understand the costs of animal care! Sanctuaries need fundraising support throughout their rescued animals’ whole lives. People are enthusiastic to give when it’s a new rescue, or if someone has an extreme medical emergency. But the day-to-day ongoing costs, including the supportive vet care and team of caregivers are also so critical.
We would love to acquire more acres of pasture and land. We are a current size that is just not large enough to do all we would like to do! We would love to have more land to rescue more animals.
Specifically we would love to have an area for senior and disabled animal rescue as well as just larger pastures for the cows so we could rescue more. If we could really dream big, we would love to have a small vet clinic on sight to help offset the costs of animal vet care and to also provide some local spay and neuter services.
Beyond the Barn: What Lancaster Farm Sanctuary Teaches Us About Our Own Humanity
Sanctuaries are often described as places where animals heal. That is true—but it is only half the story. They are also places where humans confront the consequences of industries we’ve been taught to view as normal. Standing beside a rescued cow or pig, it becomes impossible to ignore that these individuals were never commodities; they were children, siblings, elders, friends. They were never “livestock”—they were lives.
Lancaster Farm Sanctuary exposes a truth many people never encounter firsthand: once an animal experiences safety and agency, their personality unfolds in ways that reveal the depth of what was taken from them. A pig’s joy, a pony’s preferences, a cow’s grief—these are not anomalies. They are evidence.
What LFS models is not merely rescue, but a different paradigm for understanding animals altogether. In a county defined by agriculture, they embody a quiet but transformative cultural shift: what if our relationship with other species was built on respect rather than domination? What if “farm” didn’t mean ownership—but refuge? What if care—not consumption—was the primary work of a community?
This sanctuary exists inside a world that often ignores the suffering of farmed animals, yet it refuses to mirror that world’s values. Its staff and volunteers show up in the rain, in the heat, in moments of heartbreak and exhaustion, driven by a simple truth: every life saved matters.
A Final Note
Lancaster Farm Sanctuary stands as a counter-narrative to the systems around it—an insistence that compassion is not naïve, that justice is not abstract, and that the lives of animals are worthy of protection, dignity, and joy.
Their story is not finished. It is still being written in every pasture, in every rescue, in every volunteer who shows up, and in every animal who finally gets to live as they were meant to.
Support Lancaster Farm Sanctuary
If you’d like to help Lancaster Farm Sanctuary continue rescuing, healing, and advocating for farmed animals, you can donate here.
Your contribution directly supports veterinary care, feed, safe shelter, enrichment, and the long-term well-being of the sanctuary’s residents.
The Humane Herald 