The Catskill Animal Sanctuary is Where Even a Blind Horse Can Sing (Interview)

On Beekman Farm, care of animals is the top priority. Watch first-time farmers, Josh and Brent, tackle raising pigs, goats, even a llama on The Fabulous Beekman Boys.

I read Kathy Stevens' book, Where the Blind Horse Sings, in one sitting and I knew immediately that I had to learn more from her and share his message, spirit, and compassion with you. Kathy is the founder and director of Catskill Animal Sanctuary (CAS). Spending her childhood on a Virginia horse farm instilled in her "a deep love of and respect for all animals," yet she also saw "the ugly side of an industry that uses animals as commodities." Little did she know how such a childhood would shape her future.

Having gone from respected high school English teacher to running one of the nation's leading sanctuaries for farmed animals, Kathy Stevens has become a powerful voice for compassionate living. (Her second book, Animal Camp, will be released in August 2010.)

FYI: Kathy lives behind the barn with her dog Hannah and her cats Fat Boy and Mouse.

WATCH VIDEO: Escape to Chimp Eden: Sanctuary Tour

About the Catskill Animal Sanctuary

The crew at CAS opened doors in 2003 and have saved over 1,700 animals in that time. They rescue 12 species of farmed animals, from rabbits to horses—emergency rescue only. Historically, most have come from cruelty cases (including 300 chickens from a Bronx poultry market). CAS has small staff (9 folks; some full-time, some part-time) and an army of dedicated volunteers. "Extraordinary people," says Kathy. Educational program includes on-site tours, special programs designed to meet needs of individual groups, talks at conferences, and at schools from kindergarten through university level.

CAS: One-Minute Tour

My Conversation With Kathy Stevens

Planet Green: How does one go from high school English teacher to opening a Sanctuary?

Kathy Stevens: One deliberate step at a time, but with her heart wide open and with all engines revving! I'd been a high school English teacher in the Boston area for ten years, and considered it my job to ensure that every single 11th or 12th grader who left my classroom each June was a better thinker, writer, speaker and a more aware person than s/he was the previous September. I truly loved the classroom, but felt restricted by this huge, bureaucratic organism called public education. Then, one day, I was invited to be the principal of an exciting new charter school opening just outside Boston. Yes!! In my mind, I'd been moving in that direction, seeing that one problem schools face is that there are too few leaders with courage, vision, and the ability to draw the best from their staffs. However, when I really sat with the opportunity, I realized that it wasn't what I truly wanted, after all. I'd be losing that intimate, daily connection with kids, which was the thing that inspired me to begin each day joyfully. I'd be spending too much time dealing with mandates, regulations, and bureaucrats. Much to my own surprise, I turned down the lucrative job offer.

PG: I like the way you think.

KS: Hmmmm. As I wrote in the introduction to my first book, Where the Blind Horse Sings, every year I'd send my seniors off with a speech inspiring them to bold, be brave, to write their own stories. But what was mine to be? I took a few months off—the first time ever during my adult life—and simply began to ask myself what I loved, what I believed in, what I was here on Earth, right now, to do. It soon became clear that I wanted somehow, in my next work, combine my two passions: 1) my deep love for animals and a recognition that they are so much more than most people ever know (I had grown up on a farm in Virginia 2) my love of and belief in education as a tool for transformation.

PG: How did you put all that in action?

KS: It took many more months of travel to sanctuaries all around the country and of getting all our legal ducks in a row, but this was the genesis of Catskill Animal Sanctuary, a haven for twelve species of farm animals that's also a true teaching sanctuary that reaches out to underserved communities and offers a full range of educational programming from inspirational speakers to weekend tours to vegan cooking classes to a camp for children.

PG: I asked Kathy to tell us about some of the programs at CAS:

Emergency Rescue

KS: Since 2003, we've taken in over 1,700 animals who had truly run out of options: victims of cruelty and starvation, victims of agribusiness, and most recently, victims of the economy: animals whose families have lost their farms. We've taken in boxes of chicks left in dumpsters after classroom "egg-hatching projects," draft horses worn out from a lifetime of enslavement (they've pulled carriages filled with tourists or wagons loaded with trees or pulled plows for Amish farmers, then, after a lifetime of service, they've been sent to auction to be bid upon by "horse traders," i.e. folks who purchase for resale to slaughterhouses), goats and sheep with "sold" spray-painted on one side of their bodies, rabbits with maggots crawling out of their crevices, victims of the fur industry, and so many more. Many have been victims of chronic starvation. Often, we've been told by vets that they were "too far gone" and that we should euthanize them. Only a very few times in seven years, however, was an animal too far gone. Over and over we find that animals fight for their lives...and what a gift it is to be able to fight with and for them: not only to provide proper nourishment, clean and spacious shelter and pasture, expert medical care...beyond that, to participate in the transformation of broken spirits. We get to say with every word, every gesture or action: You're safe here. That remains, for me, the greatest joy of the work that we do.

Compassionate Cuisine

CAS is thrilled to be the first Sanctuary in the country, perhaps in the world, to offer a full-scale vegan cooking program! To me, this was a no brainer. Is there a vegan on the planet who hasn't heard some version of my Dad's "joke": "Girl, what are ya havin' for dinner tonight: sticks and leaves?" If we're working for a vegan world, I believe it's our job not only to help people understand why that matters (animals are just like us in ways that matter, agribusiness is killing the planet, meat and dairy make you sick), but also give them the skills and confidence to transition to a vegan diet. Obviously, sanctuaries exist because we believe that every life counts. Catskill Animal Sanctuary certainly believes this. However, the lives saved by the combined efforts of every sanctuary in the world represent the tiniest fraction of the suffering animals endure at the hands of a species that believes itself entitled to use animals for any purpose we wish. Agribusiness alone is responsible for the misery and violent death of some 65 billion animals worldwide each year. So we have to address diet. But I believe we must do so in a way that's non-judgmental, inviting, exciting. So Compassionate Cuisine does just that: we offer workshops, cooking classes, cooking demonstrations at festivals, take-out dinners...we even offer a "chef for hire" program through which our chef, the engaging and talented Kevin Archer, will come to your home and cook for you and your friends. It's all designed to show folks: Hey: this food is delicious and even you can make it!

Camp Kindness

The least-known component of Catskill Animal Sanctuary's mission is to serve the under-served. To that end, we offer a wide range of on-site and off-site programming, free of charge, to schools in economically deprived communities. We're doing the same thing this summer as we launch Camp Kindness, a week-long day camp based at CAS that offers "up close and personal" interaction with animals, organic gardening and vegan cooking classes with "The Good Chef Kev," reading and reflection time, and a lot more. In our pilot year, we're networking with regional homeless shelters to offer the program gratis to homeless kids. Doing this feels right on so many levels, and we can't wait to get started!

PG: How can readers get involved?

KS: So many ways! First, for folks within a few hours of CAS, our annual Shindig is coming up on June 13: a day of music (Roulette Sisters, Acoustic Medicine Show, and several more performers), hayrides, tours, talks, auctions, and this year, food, food, food! Cooking workshops, cooking demos, free recipes, and great vegan food to eat! It's 10 to 6, rain or shine. Second, we're halfway through an extraordinary matching campaign that will enable us to expand our emergency rescue program by purchasing an additional forty acres, building more barns and shelters, and hiring more animal care staff, and that will also help us expand Camp Kindness by building dormitories to open up the camp to kids from anywhere in the world. We've got until December 31 to raise a million dollars, and any donation in any amount in any form (outright donation, Sanctuary membership, purchases from our on-line store, animal sponsorships, etc.) will be matched. It's truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to expand our impact to help more animals and reach more people with our message of compassion through diet. That's a great way for folks to get involved! Third: we need more folks to help spread the word about the work of CAS. Bloggers to write about our work, our program, our books, folks to spread the word to their Facebook friends

PG: Any words of advice to anyone wanting to make a change?

KS: Life is short. Find what makes you happy, go after it single-mindedly, and then share that happiness with others. At the end of the day, that's all that really matters.