Learning 4 Life Farm Alpacas for Autism

Commodities

Practices

Learning 4 Life Farm is creating a 7-acre sustainable farm with organic gardens and therapy alpacas to provide job training and animal assisted alpaca therapy for youth on the autism spectrum. Program participants will care for the alpacas; plant and maintain the gardens; sell produce and products they create and learn Sustainable Agriculture practices and transition life skills. Participants will gain hands-on experience in rotational grazing, sustainable livestock management and regenerative agriculture. Our objective for this proposal is to staff our alpaca program, providing staff wages for a portion of the program.

• Provide transition job training in a sustainable organic farm setting for youth ages 14-25 on the autism spectrum in central Ohio. We expect to serve 100 job training participants per year. 
• Provide animal assisted alpaca therapy to improve quality of life for people ages 3-25 with ASD and other disabilities, serving 275+ clients per year. Our animal assisted alpaca therapy program would be one of only a few in the world specifically tailored for autism. 
• Participants will gain hands-on experience in sustainable alpaca management, managed rotational grazing, and regenerative agriculture.