TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) – Redemptive Love Farm & Rescue is a sanctuary of over 100 different animals — many of them disabled. It’s a peaceful place that brings healing and hope to all who enter.
Shannon Carroll is the Founder and Executive Director of Redemptive Love Farm & Rescue, which sits on 12 acres of historic farmland in Miccosukee.
She bought the farm in 2015 for a backyard homestead and to homeschool her seven adopted children, some of them with special needs.
In 2016, to help fund her animals’ care, Carroll opened the farm as a business, providing a petting zoo and birthday parties. She says her real mission became clear when she saw how her children responded to the animals.
“When we were out with the animals, they were just different kids, and I saw empathy and compassion growing. They just blossomed with the animals,” she said.
Animal rescue was Shannon’s world before she started the farm. She worked with Tallahassee Animal Services for several years before becoming a mother.
In 2022, she turned the farm into a nonprofit to help farm animals and to give others the opportunity to experience the joy and healing that comes with animal therapy.
Last year we took in 250 farm animals. A lot of them needed a lot of rehab, vet care and physical therapy.
Carroll said there’s no other animal-specific livestock rescue in the area, and it gets almost all of its owner surrenders from the community. It’s a soft landing place for animals who are abandoned, disabled and neglected — a last chance for farm animals with nowhere else to go.
The farm has hosted over 120 field trips and over 6,000 students. It teaches agriculture education, provides animal therapy for the community and has started the process of becoming a therapeutic farm center.
Milagros Pollock is now the organization’s Education Director, but she first came to the farm for healing after being diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer during the pandemic.
“I found myself in a deep depression and sadness,” Pollock said. “Shannon has been a blessing to me. I messaged her and said can I come to your farm, sit around and hold an animal? She said, ‘You can come any time.’ I knew at that moment that if it helped me, it could help so many other people.”
In 2022, Shannon lost her daughter, Brittney, whom she had adopted when Brittany was 10. She was deemed unadoptable by the State of Florida due to her severe disabilities. Upon adopting her, Shannon was told Brittany only had six months to live.
“Not only did she live 8 and a half years, but she learned to walk,” Shannon said. “She thrived in school and ate real food — all the things the doctors said she would never learn to do. She thrived and lived to adulthood. She died at 18 and a half, so she was a little adult.”
Shannon said what she does now is all for Brittney. She said if Redemptive Love Farm wins the GIVETLH grant, it would be miraculous.
“We would really be able to focus on the services we provide for the community and we would be able to focus on our animal care. This grant would be one of those things that just allows us to breathe and just pour into what we are already doing and what we want to do more of for the community.”
For more information about volunteer opportunities at Redemptive Love Farm & Rescue or to donate, go to redemptivelovefarm.com.
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