Volunteer Spotlight

Meet Christine McDonald, volunteer and long time friend. Chrissy is retired and helps with some of our virtual volunteer opportunities as well as on the farm.  When not helping the animals, she enjoys spending time bike riding, swimming, trail hiking/walking and exploring. Chrissy has made volunteering a family affair. She has recruited her daughter, Courtney and cousin Emily to help on the farm and Courtney, who enjoys photography, has taken many pictures for the FANS

Kerstin recently celebrated her two month anniversary as part of the Farmhouse family. Like many of us Kerstin is very busy. She works in the tax field and has two children who are very active in sports. If you have sporty kids, you know how time consuming that can be. With all of that she still finds time to help at FANS once or twice a week spending at least four hours each visit and

Farmhouse Animal and Nature Sanctuary (FANS) located in Myakka City, is always looking for like-minded animal lovers to help with the seemingly never-ending list of chores to be done both at the sanctuary and virtually. Whether it’s feeding the animals and cleaning their feed areas to larger projects like fence or irrigation repairs to setting up fundraisers, FANS can always use good help. Larry Hamilton is one of our feed and clean crew. Although he works full

What do you think of when considering becoming a volunteer at the sanctuary? Most people think volunteering means spending the day mucking stalls, scrubbing water troughs and raking pastures. Although, those are things we need help with, there are other ways you can help too. Judith is a great example of how you can use your talents to help the animals. Check out what Judith has to say about being a volunteer: How did you

Andrea came to us when she was looking for an animal organization to volunteer at after her career changed from working with animals to working at home behind a desk due to COVID. She stumbled upon FANS through an internet search. Andrea is part of our morning feed and clean crew, where she comes to the farm once a week and takes care of feeding the animals and cleaning up their feed areas and habitats.

by Sandra Krug Carrie Burns has been a resident of Manatee County for most of her life. She became involved with Farmhouse Animal and Nature Sanctuary (FANS) because her parents, Dave and Lisa Burns, run the rescue. Carrie always had a love and a soft spot for animals. She knew right away; she had to be around them. Carrie serves on the Board of Directors for FANS. Since moving to Lakeland Carrie switched from being

Volunteers play a strategically important role in animal rescue. It also gives you the chance to contribute every day to the kind of community and world in which you want to live. Cara was in a local community Facebook page and saw that they were looking for items to auction for a fundraising event. Being a groomer and loving animals, she chose to offer a gift certificate for her services. After speaking in length with

Farmhouse Animal and Nature Sanctuary (FANS) located in Myakka City, is always looking for like-minded animal lovers to help with the seemingly never-ending list of chores to be done at the sanctuary. Whether its regular maintenance like raking leaves or cleaning the feeding areas to larger projects like fence or irrigation repairs to painting FANS can always use good help. One of those helpers is volunteer, Annette Laliberte. Annette tells us that “Caring for animals and the

Every so often we will interview one of our volunteers. Learn why they volunteer, what they like about being a volunteer and advice they would give to new volunteers and more. Here is our Q&A with Leah Riggle! FANS: How Did you hear about Farmhouse and what made you decide to become a volunteer? Leah: My mom told me about it, and I really wanted to volunteer with animals and help take care of them.