The Big Purple Barn provides a permanent home with a lifetime of compassionate care for special needs horses, ponies, minis, as well as sheep, goats, and pigs. Our residents, in turn, provide opportunities in our community for people to make meaningful connections with our animals.
Providing attention and care for 15 equines, many of which have special needs, as well as pigs, goats, sheep and cats every day, is a critical task at the farm. That is why we developed a volunteer program.
Our volunteers are an invaluable part of our programs. Volunteers typically sign up to perform evening feed shifts which include feeding the horses, mucking of stalls and fields and weather appropriate tasks such as blanketing, bathing and trough scrubbing. Shifts typically occur in the late afternoon/early evening and last from 1 to 3 hours depending on the amount of volunteers assigned to a shift.
Many volunteers like to spend extra time with a special horse they connect with. The horses enjoy the additional treats, grooming and extra attention. We accept volunteers as young as 10 to work under supervision in the barn. No horse experience is required and we provide continual training.
