Animal Place Celebrates 30 Years!

On June 29, Animal Place — the Grass Valley, California farm sanctuary and education & advocacy center — celebrated its 30th anniversary and the grand opening of its new second location in Petaluma.

Animal Place was the first big inspiration for Greg and me to get involved in animal causes beyond cats and dogs, and to become vegetarian and ultimately vegan. In recent years, Animal Place’s Food for Thought program has been a favorite partner of this Fund. Naturally, therefore, I made the cross-country trip to join in Animal Place’s double celebration.

In addition to enjoying some great vegan food and entertainment, I “Braved the Cage” with other participants, getting locked into a human-sized battery cage for a brief sense of how most egg-laying hens spend their whole lives.

Animal Place’s primary location in Grass Valley, California is a 600-acre permanent home for over 300 cows, pigs, sheep, goats, rabbits, equines, chickens, turkeys and other animals.

A primary goal of the new second location in Petaluma is to serve as a rescue and adoption center for egg-laying hens. Animal Place has already worked with farms across California to rescue and adopt out 26,000 “spent hens,” and this new center will facilitate rescuing many thousands more. 

First, new barns must be built — and this weekend’s event was also a fundraiser for that purpose. The goal was $30,000 to be doubled by an anonymous matching grant, and this Fund contributed $1,000. By the end of the night, the goal had been comfortably exceeded — so the hen rescues should be starting up again very soon!

Photos: Alysoun the pig (c Marji Beach) at Animal Place in Grass Valley. Alysoun the human and other guests “braving the cage.” Kelcie Leach, Adoption Manager for Animal Place’s Petaluma Rescue & Adoption Center.