Sustainability at Kindred Farm
The Headline
Sustainability has been on my mind a lot as I think about where our charity first started, where it is now, and what the future may look like.
So how did we get here, a few highlights
Back in April, 2016, we were thinking about sustainability when we struck up a Land Committee to strategize finding a permanent home.
Knowing we were going to move out of the South Surrey area, we changed our name from Semiahmoo Animal League (SALI) to Kindred Community Farm Sanctuary in 2019.
In 2021, we received an eviction notice from the 176th property. When word got out, the donations started pouring it and we were on our way to raising enough money to buy our own farm.
It seems, disasters can ignite momentum and when we were evicted from the 184th property in 2023, it was time to buy or dissolve the charity.
As you know, we did buy a farm.
Next on my list
The other important piece to sustainability is to augment volunteers with staff.
In 2024, Chris announced that she would like to retire from Animal Care. Chris has been involved in animal care since we rescued our first animal—Badger! We had to come with a strategy on how to replace her. The strategy was to hire two Barn Managers to cover her shifts, Jason Roscoe and Anna Butz.
It seems, Chris is a good one for getting me to REALLY THINK about sustainability as she announced in 2025 that she would also like to retire as the Program Director. Thankfully, she gave me lots of notice and I’d like to introduce our new Program Director, Lauren Campbell (starting in Sept 8).
Lauren Campbell
Legacy
I was talking with Chris about what her retirement would look like and it seemed more fitting to use the word legacy. Chris is still a Volunteer Barn Manager, a co-owner of the farm, lives at the farm and is very passionate about the possibilities at Kindred. This is why Legacy fits better.
In the back of my mind, I know I’m not getting any younger and I want Kindred to continue on when I’m gone. I know that a Volunteer Executive Director is not that easy to find so I have a $100,000 life insurance policy that the charity owns with instructions to the board that it be used on my passing to hire an Executive Director.
We have an amazing FUN-Raising team that will keep going and will strategize into the future to meet the needs of Kindred Farm.
We now have Wren Peters as our Volunteer Coordinator and she is working hard to get our volunteer process more streamlined and more adaptive to Kindred’s needs. I look forward to giving you more details on this soon.
Our Board of Directors that was just re-elected, will keep our eye on the mission, and the financial and strategic governance of Kindred Farm.
Piya Sandhu, Scott Groves, Me, Michelle Lima, Jennifer Smith
All in all, your farm is in good hands!
