About

To provide enrichment educational resources to adults and youth who do not have ready access to a working farm; including hands-on livestock workshops, educational publications, mentor programs, peer networking, and teaching compassion for animals and each other.

In 1970, the Foundation’s founder Loring Puffer established Rivendell School here. It was a residential institution for New England’s delinquent teenagers until 1982. From 1990 to 1997, the property was home to Learning Networks Foundation, which provided distance learning for adults and in the early 2000s, the Foundation sponsored educational programs for at-risk youth in the U.S. Virgin Islands, a place that was dear to the heart of our founder.

After Loring’s death in 1999, his widow, Carole Soule, turned her attention to reviving the property as a working beef cattle farm. But seeing agriculture as endangered and widely misunderstood, and realizing the beneficial impact farming can have on the lives of young people, she refocused the Foundation’s efforts accordingly.