H.O.P.E-full Pastures brings healing and joy to the community

At just 12 years old, Christa Carrero knew her calling was to work with children in need. 

H.O.P.E-full Pastures Therapeutic Farm is a nonprofit organization that offers animal-based therapy and mentorship to vulnerable children ages 5-21 and families who have experienced trauma, loss or neglect. Carrero founded H.O.P.E.-full Pastures with her husband Isidro Carrero in September 2020 and currently serves as the organization’s director. She said founding the nonprofit has been a lifelong journey that all started when her Missionettes teacher returned from a mission field in Mexico City. 

“She showed us these pictures of the orphans [living in] the garbage dumps [in Mexico City],” Carrero said. “And that was when I first knew I wanted to work with orphans, and that was just very heavy on my heart.”

When Carrero was old enough, she interned with her Missionettes teacher in the Mexico City garbage dumps. She also traveled to Guatemala and served as the administrative assistant to the Casa Renave Orphanage for three years.

“That was where I, as a single mom, adopted my oldest daughter,” Carrero said. “Her name is Adriana, and she just became my life and my joy, and there weren't any programs for special needs kids. So the Lord just continued to break my heart.”

Eventually, Carrero finalized Adriana’s adoption and returned home. Quickly after, she married her husband. Together, they had four more daughters and started fostering children as well. 

Carrero attributes their inspiration for creating H.O.P.E-full Pastures to seven children who were particularly special in their lives. Six were children they fostered and eventually reunited with their biological families, and one was a little girl Carrero had especially fond of in Guatemala. 

“Anna was seven when I first arrived on the mission field,” Carrero said. “I loved her. Adored her. I did. We just weren't in a position to be able to adopt her, so she was reunited with her family, who also loved her, but they were so poverty-stricken.”

In January 2020, Carrero returned with her family to the orphanage in Guatemala, hopeful of reuniting with Anna. 

“We went three times, no success, until we finally located her family, only to learn that she died nine years earlier,” Carrero said. “So, I came back from that trip wrecked and realizing we have to do something … I lost seven children I love dearly. Even though six reunified, and those were beautiful situations, and it worked out well, and those kids are all doing well, personally, our family suffered.”

That next January, in 2021, they served their first family at H.O.P.E.-full Pastures.

“It was one little boy and one dad,” Carrero said. “And since then, we have served 360 children. That’s 177 unique families.”

Children who experience their program are paired up with mentors that they call Pasture Pals. Pasture Pals can be anyone age 13 and up. Carrero said oftentimes volunteers will be children or family members who have experienced the program themselves. 

Children are also assigned a farm animal, like a bunny, horse or duck, to learn about and care for while there. Carrero said she believes that the children’s time interacting with the animals allows them a safe space to be themselves without fear.

The program also includes educational opportunities for the families that mirror the lessons their children are learning with their Pasture Pals. These lessons include scriptures from the Bible, self-regulation techniques and more. 

Currently, H.O.P.E-full Pastures is undergoing some renovations and additions to its program to include spaces for art and music therapy, a sensory barn with a playroom room and more. The Carreros also plan to transform the farmhouse into a living space for families in need. 

“[H.O.P.E.-full] Pastures is a place where kids can connect with nature, connect with God and with their families,” Carrero said. “We need each other. And especially fostering, adopting, like the trauma that our kids have gone through, nobody can prepare us for that. And that's what H.O.P.E-full pastures just really becomes: that family and that support and that safe place.”