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Laurelee Blanchard had long been an animal lover, but it was meeting a turkey that changed the course of her life.
The California resident had been volunteering with an animal welfare organization and had recently made the decision to eliminate all animal products from her diet after learning about the poor treatment of livestock at most factory farms. But even though she was passionate about the cause, she realized she had never actually spent much time around farm animals and didn’t really know what they were like.
So she planned a weekend trip to an animal sanctuary in Northern California, where she met a rescued turkey.
“It was the first time in my life I’d seen a living turkey,” she says. “The only turkeys I’d known were the ones on the Thanksgiving dinner table.”
On the same visit, she spent time petting and getting to know cows, baby goats and pigs – which each weighed more than 1,000 pounds, and surprised her with how gentle and personable they were.
“It was one of the happiest days of my life, meeting all those animals,” she recalls. “It was so unlike anything I’d ever done.”
Blanchard returned to her suburban home in Orange County and her job as senior vice president for a commercial real estate firm, but something had changed.
“I started dreaming about how wonderful life would be living on a farm,” she says.
More than 16 years later, Blanchard is living her dream as the owner of Leilani Farm Sanctuary, an 8-acre farm for rescued animals in Haiku. The nonprofit organization is responsible for the care of around 230 animals.
After her visit to the California farm, Blanchard says she eventually decided to cash in her life savings to establish her own animal sanctuary. It was a big step, but she says she was inspired to make the move after learning about factory farming and feeling overwhelmed by the magnitude of animals’ suffering.
“I just couldn’t handle it without actively doing something to help and being part of the solution,” she says. “Once you peek behind the curtain, it’s hard to forget what you’ve seen.”
She chose rural Maui because the mild climate and absence of predators like coyotes would be a comfortable, safe environment for animals to live outdoors year-round. When she arrived, the property had one house, but no fences or barns.
“Little by little we’ve been building the infrastructure,” she says.
For eight years Blanchard ran the farm on her own money. After her savings ran out, she registered the organization as a nonprofit. With no paid employees, private donations and volunteer help have been enough to provide for the animals ever since.
Over the years, she’s received animals from a variety of sources. Many of her goats and deer came to her as newborns, rescued after their mothers were killed by hunters. Blanchard bottle-fed them until they were old enough to join her growing herd of grazing animals.
“They think I’m their mother,” she says. “Even as adults they follow me everywhere, and they still want to be picked up and cuddled.”
One of her pigs was rescued after escaping from a pig farm as a baby. A second was a wild boar who had been living in a nearby gulch and came to the farm of his own accord.
“He helps us dispel the myth that wild boars are mean and vicious,” she says. “He’s so sweet – he has a heart of gold.”
While Blanchard is gratified to provide a safe home for animals that might otherwise end up on the dinner plate, she says her most important mission is providing education about animal welfare. Farm tours, which include opportunities to pet and cuddle the animals, offer Blanchard a chance to talk about the poor conditions in which most animals live on industrial farms, and visitors can learn about animals’ intelligence and emotional lives.
“We want people to rethink their food choices,” she says. “We love for visitors to have a connection with these animals and see them as individuals with personalities and regard them as something other than a meal.”
Most gratifying are the emails she receives from people who say they visited the farm and later decided to stop consuming meat or animal products.
“It makes us feel like we’re fulfilling our mission,” she says.
For more information about Leilani Farm Sanctuary, including its schedule for tours and volunteer days, visit www.leilanifarmsanctuary.org
* Ilima Loomis is a Maui-based writer and editor. Do you have an interesting neighbor? Tell us about them at neighbors.maui@gmail.com. Neighbors and “The State of Aloha,” written by Ben Lowenthal, alternate Fridays.