2020 at Woodstock

From all of us at Woodstock Farm Sanctuary, thank you so much for your kind support this year. We are drawing the curtain on 2020 and want to share how you have helped us in this hard, strange year to save many lives and provide the care and kindness to our residents that make us Woodstock Sanctuary.

• We saved over 80 animals directly and welcomed them into lifelong sanctuary
  We expanded our animal care team under the leadership of our shelter director Hervé and shelter manager Diana to continue to provide the best possible care for our nearly 400 residents, many of whom have special needs

• Our amazing volunteer coordinator Sean kept up the job of keeping the Sanctuary clean for the animals even with limited volunteers; he was helped by many of our staff who volunteered outside of their normal jobs to clean barns and pastures

• When we were able to be open to the public for limited events, we collected plant-based food for the local food community fridge

• We were able to care for many of our longtime older residents as they passed on this year—giving them peace and dignity to the end

• We moved our educational tours online reaching hundreds of thousands of people, most of whom would not have visited a sanctuary in person

• Our messaging of an inclusive, truly just animal rights movement included our continued support of the Black Lives Matter movement

• Our campaign Dairy Truth was relaunched – educating millions of people about the realities of the dairy industry

• Our executive director Rachel wrote and spoke about the impact of animal agriculture and the climate crisis in digital events and spaces all year

• We rescued many ducks and chickens after pandemic buying and advocated on their behalf to stop the purchasing

• Our marketing director Lizz dressed up in silly outfits and interviewed the residents here in a new social media “show” and was able to get the stories of turkeys and other animals to go “viral” — taking advantage of everyone being home and on social media platforms

• Over 14,000 people signed our petition to encourage farm owners to consider sanctuary and rescue placements instead of mass depopulation events which were happening more than ever during the early pandemic

• Stories about our work were in 59 publications reaching tens of thousands of people

• We led the animal rights community in pushing for President-elect Biden to reconsider his nomination of dairy lobbyist Tom Vilsack to head the USDA

• Overall, we reached 25 million people on all of our platforms – and made the case to each of them that farmed animals are individuals worthy of respect and empathy and MUST be included in a shared vision of a just and kind world. And all year we centered the residents here in our hearts and gave them the lives that we wish all living beings could have.

For more stories and some beautiful footage of the Sanctuary, please see this year end video.

Thanks from all of us. We hope to see your face sometime in 2021!

For the animals,
Rachel McCrystal
Executive Director