Pasture pals

On Tuesday, VINE Sanctuary launched its Pasture Pals program, which gives area children the opportunity to spend time with animals, learn about compassion, and give back to the sanctuary.

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2017-07-26 / Front Page Pasture pals Group launches program teaching humane treatment of animals to kids By KELSEY CHRISTENSEN kchristensen@eagletimes.com VINE Sanctuary co-founder Patrice Jones poses with Scotty, a bull from Chester that was given a home at the sanctuary when his previous owner passed away. On Tuesday, VINE launched its Pasture Pals program, which gives area children the opportunity to spend time with animals, learn about compassion, and give back to the sanctuary. — KELSEY CHRISTENSEN VINE Sanctuary co-founder Patrice Jones poses with Scotty, a bull from Chester that was given a home at the sanctuary when his previous owner passed away. On Tuesday, VINE launched its Pasture Pals program, which gives area children the opportunity to spend time with animals, learn about compassion, and give back to the sanctuary. — KELSEY CHRISTENSEN SPRINGFIELD, Vt. — ”I drink 30 gallons of water a day. I’m very gentle. I have a very large tongue, and if we’re friends, I’ll lick your face just like a dog.” These are some of the clues Aimee Bittinger gave Asher Schutzius on Tuesday in an exercise where Schutzius guessed which animal Bittinger described at the VINE Sanctuary in Springfield. It’s all part of the Pasture Pals’ inaugural drop-in session, where kids can come to spend time with animals, give them treats, and learn about compassion and humane treatment of animals at the VINE Sanctuary in Springfield, Vermont. “We’re getting them to think about animals a little differently,” said Bittinger, who works as support staff at the Bernice A. Ray School in Hanover, New Hampshire. Bittinger has always been interested in animal rights and advocacy, so she’s volunteering her time and teaching to the Sanctuary’s weekly educational program. “We’ll feed them, give treats, and give them an activity to give back to the animals,” Bittinger said. “This isn’t a petting zoo, this is a sanctuary for the animals to feel safe.” If you visit the VINE (Veganism is the Next Evolution) Sanctuary on Massey Road in Springfield, you’re apt to see emus, a peacock with his feathers unfurled, a turkey disarmingly predisposed to cuddling by your legs, cows with chickens roosting atop their backs, and much more. Founded by Patrice and Miriam Jones, the VINE Sanctuary gives a home to animals that have been rescued or taken in. Predominantly, the VINE residents have been seized by authorities, like the roosters that come from cock fighting rings or the cows that have been left to starve in cases where farms have run out of money. But one of the residents is an escapee, another came from a university dairy-research facility, and some have been brought to the sanctuary by concerned citizens. The first animal to come under the Jones’ charge fell off of a truck on the way to a poultry farm. In those days, the sanctuary was in Maryland, where Patrice Jones says the factory farming of chickens was invented and perfected. The Jones’ called a local animal shelter when they found the chicken. “We asked, ‘What do we do with this chicken?’” Patrice Jones recalls. “They said, ‘have a good dinner.’” Thus, the sanctuary was founded. What started as one chicken has grown into over 600 animals, with a move to Vermont affording the sanctuary more space. VINE now boasts 105 acres, providing ample space for their roughly 41 cows to graze and roam. It’s also earned the superlative of the first animal sanctuary to learn how to rehabilitate roosters rescued from cock fighting, and the title as the third largest farm animal sanctuary in the country. “[The mission of VINE] is two-fold. One, is to offer refuge to survivors of violence against animals,” Patrice Jones said. “The other is to help create a world where sanctuaries aren’t necessary, which involves a broad range of education and advocacy efforts, both locally and regionally.” Asher Schutzius (left) and Aimee Bittinger (right), a volunteer educator at the VINE Sanctuary in Springfield, tentatively prepare to pet a VINE resident. On Tuesday, VINE, a sanctuary which provides homes to animals who have been rescued from abuse, escaped from the dairy industry, or surrendered by kind citizens, launched its Pasture Pals program, which gives area children the opportunity to spend time with animals, learn about compassion, and give back to the sanctuary. — KELSEY CHRISTENSEN Asher Schutzius (left) and Aimee Bittinger (right), a volunteer educator at the VINE Sanctuary in Springfield, tentatively prepare to pet a VINE resident. On Tuesday, VINE, a sanctuary which provides homes to animals who have been rescued from abuse, escaped from the dairy industry, or surrendered by kind citizens, launched its Pasture Pals program, which gives area children the opportunity to spend time with animals, learn about compassion, and give back to the sanctuary. — KELSEY CHRISTENSEN Pasture Pals, which will meet on Tuesdays through August from 1 to 4 p.m., is one such effort. Jones sees the work the sanctuary does with children as an outlet for children to interact with animals without the knowledge that they’ll go to slaughter, in contrast, for example, with 4-H, which gives children such an opportunity but only within the context of raising animals to be eaten. But, there’s an additional benefit. “It gives kids an opportunity to see that it’s possible to be friends with someone really different than you,” Patrice Jones said. “Sheep and chickens are really different from each other, but they get along here. Maybe there are ways we’re really different from each other, and we can just respect that and co-exist.” VINE is starting with a weekly drop-in program, but they hope to mount a full summer camp program for kids in the future. In preparation for their Pasture Pals program, VINE Sanctuary consulted with an array of experts locally and regionally, from children’s librarians to the Institute for Humane Education. VINE, like most nonprofits, is funded through an array of support structures. Anybody can provide donations of any size: Jones says they have some sponsors who have donated $5 per month since 2002. The group also does fundraisers, but a big portion of their support comes from a family foundation, which prefers to remain anonymous, that helped VINE purchase the property they’re on now. Additionally, the foundation promises to give a minimum to VINE each month to help with the feeding and upkeep of the animals that call the sanctuary home. Patrice Jones isn’t ignorant to the fact that she’s operating in a state, and even a town, that relies on the dairy industry for jobs, food, and even a source of identity. When VINE was in Maryland, they were at the heart of the egg and poultry industry. In Springfield, they’re in a mecca for dairying. “There’s nothing about dairying that’s intrinsic to Vermont,” she said. “We envision a future with a vibrant plant-based agricultural industry.” Patrice Jones says that, while pervasive and dominant, the idea of dairying as being at the heart of a Vermonter’s identity is a mythic social construction with which we’re no longer obligated to agree. She points out that the agricultural impulses that are indigenous to Vermont are the beans, corn, and rice model of the Abenaki tribe. “The creation of the image of a Vermonter as a Yankee with a cow was a fairly conscious decision,” she said. What Patrice Jones calls a series of historical accidents leading to an economy that relies so largely on dairying, however, is not the main focus of the sanctuary. Though the sanctuary does hold vegan potlucks with food related challenges, like the June potluck, which celebrated LGBTQ Pride by challenging attendees to make the most colorful dish possible, Jones says the sanctuary tries to focus on agendas with which everyone can agree. “Everybody can agree we need more access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Everyone can agree more low income people need access,” she said. “No one thinks cows should be left to starve. Everybody is glad there’s someone to take care of them.”