Why One Living Sanctuary?
One Living Sanctuary is creating a community where all life is treated with compassion and respect.
Guiding Principles
Platinum Rule: Treat all beings as they would want to be treated.
Cultivate compassion and respect for all life through daily practice.
Lead by example, developing, promoting, and sharing great new ideas and programs to help animals, people, and the planet.
Be caring, honest, authentic, and transparent in our relationships.
Vision
One Living Sanctuary serves as a center for like-minded people to work together to engage in social action, animal justice, outreach, and restoration. The Sanctuary provides compassionate animal rescue, housing, veterinarian care as needed, and rehabilitation and release of wildlife, when appropriate.
Animal-People
Animal rescue: farmed animals are provided with housing and land appropriate to each species. For example, chickens have a lockable coop for safety at night, and a larger space to roam during the day. People are able to interact with the farmed animals through guided tours, which educate the public about the lives of the average farmed animal. The tours allow a chance to combine didactic information with the tangible experience of meeting the animals.
Rehabilitation: injured or orphaned wild animals brought to us are treated and rehabilitated, then released back into the wild. We teach visitors about the value of patient and compassionate care and provide education and resources so that others may gain a better understanding of urban wildlife as important members of our communities and not as pests.
Veterinary care: Dr. Faith Albright, the founder and a veterinarian, sees to the health of animals at the sanctuary. Large animals vets in our area provide guidance and specialized care as needed to our goats, pigs, horses and cows.
The Community
Tours: visitors are offered donation-based tours of the sanctuary, of rescued farmed animals, and of the land management strategies, including organic gardens and compost systems.
Volunteers: community members will be invited to volunteer to help care for the animals, work in the organic garden, and tend to the needs of the community, such as through food preparation or leading workshops or teaching classes in topics which interest them (composting, solar energy, care of various animals, organic gardening, etc.)
Future Goals
Workshops: One Living Sanctuary staff eventually wants to offer workshops on compassionate animal rescue and care throughout local communities and at the sanctuary. Organizations with ethics in alignment with the sanctuary would be able to rent a community workshop space for their own events.
Eco-Retreat: The sanctuary would like to provide options for housing and for personal and community retreats: we could start with camping, and expand to offer cabins and rooms that combine sustainability with utility and the aim to provide restorative relaxation and/or active engagement with others.
Health: We would love to be able to offer massage and hot tub/sauna as well as nutrition courses and wholesome, plant-based food at the sanctuary. Over time, we may work with a healthcare team (e.g., doctor, acupuncturist, chiropractor, nutritionist, and/or other health professionals) to offer holistic integrative health care at the sanctuary.