Serenity Farm will be celebrating 10 years of service to the community on November 12.

Located on Lemoyne Road outside Luckey, Serenity Farm uses horses and certified therapy dogs to provide therapeutic services to children and adults with disabilities.

“We are strong and we are solid, and you know what, we are small, but we have never had a glitch in our programming. Never,” said executive director and founder Debra DeHoff. “We’ve never had to close the doors. We’ve never been in the red, but I attribute that to a strong board of trustees that knows how to govern and we also grow one step at a time.”

Now, the farm is extending its service to aid underachieving youth in need of counseling through its Pencils to Hoof Picks and Parenting with Results programs. The only difference is DeHoff does not like the term “counseling” and says the programs are not just for children, they are for parents, too.

At Serenity Farm, Lake students from left to right — Front:  Kneeling, Andrew Abbey and David Henninger. Standing: Matthew Permar. Middle:  Chris Cooper, Jasmine Cannon, Zak Greenlese, Katy Walker, Oliva Ciccone and a farm volun- teer. Back:  Megan D’Clute, Nicole Pennington, Madison Spitler, Jamie Schoen, Lake Middle School advisor, and Summer Woodruff.

“We try to stay away from the word ‘psycho-therapy’ and sometimes ‘counselling’ because people think it’s such a negative. So instead it’s Parenting with Results, and this is for parents,” DeHoff said.

“We are providing a therapeutic resource. So I think if we can say that rather than counselling or psycho-therapy, because sometimes people have maxed-out counselling services and, you know, they say it didn’t help. ‘Well, we didn’t do this,’ (they say). I think sometimes it’s just the name of it. We want to be known as a therapeutic resource, or as a resource on the farm,” DeHoff continued.

“So many of our parents are struggling with raising their children, and the other one is for underachieving and so it’s the Pencils to Hoof Picks for underachieving students.

“The parents that call — they just give up. It’s like, let us try and find you another resource. You know what — it’s about building their support system. Sometimes we can educate our parents about building a bigger support system. It’s not all about services. It’s about building and what we can do and being good to ourselves,” DeHoff continued.

Now, Serenity Farms is getting referrals from local school systems and from the court system, DeHoff said. They aren’t the only ones providing referrals.

“Anyone can make a referral. I think sometimes people think they can’t,” DeHoff said.

The non-profit organization, supported by 62 volunteers, launched its most unique program — Changing Directions, an equine-assisted counselling service which helped get the business nominated for a Prism Award by the Eastern Maumee Bay Chamber of Commerce in March.

Changing Directions has shown such promise that professionals from South Africa, Norway, Germany and Norwalk have visited to attend workshops.

Serenity Farm also partners with four local colleges and high schools to bring in students and interns to work on the farm through occupational therapy, veterinarian tech activities and learning various teaching and counselling therapies. The program benefits patients with more one-on-one attention and gives students real world experience in their chosen career field.

Listed among a long list of partners is Lake and Eastwood school districts. School children and their families also help support the organization.

“One of our people on the board of trustees is an administrator at Lake, and her aim for the (Serenity Farm’s annual) 2K event is for middle schools in Wood and Lucas counties to come on board and promote the event,” DeHoff said.

“I know they are in sports, but as Americans we still have the No. 1 overweight children. Not just overweight, but obesity. That is our main goal. Not only does this help support the programming, but it is an opportunity for families to get out and walk and to teach your children not only about giving, but to walk for how many miles and to have fun with your family doing it.

“It’s a family moment. So it reaches so many areas and we are so blessed by it. We have wonderful people with us. We really do.”

Tammy Tarpley, Lake Schools transportation and student activities supervisor, e-mailed The Press, “For the past three school years our middle school student council members have raised money for Serenity Farm throughout the school year and participated in the annual 2k/5k walk in Pemberville. The students have done things like dances and pajama days along with sponsorships for the walk to raise money.”

Serenity Farm’s 4th Annual 2k/5k/8k Walk/Run Event and 2k Scavenger Hunt for kids is May 21. To register for events and programs, visit serenityfarm.org, a website produced by Bowling Green State University.

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