Meet the Founders Behind Penelope’s Pondstead & Sanctuary: Healing Through Land, Animals, and Purpose

A smiling man and woman taking a selfie together indoors.

One growing family. A lifelong love for animals. A homestead with heart.

Penelope’s Pondstead and Sanctuary didn’t start with land or funding—it started with a dream. A shared one.

Karen always wanted to be Snow White. Dominic was raised with his hands in the dirt, and caring for animals before he ever stepped foot in a lab. Between the two of us, the love for land, life, and healing runs deep—and it always has.

We’re both biomedical scientists by training. Karen focuses on neuroscience and pain; Dominic studies pharmacology and cancer. Not only have these careers given us decades of formal animal care experience and training, but we also recieved accredidation from OLAW, USDA, AAALAC, and HHS to safely and ethically care for animals of all kinds. More importantly, these careers have made us sorely aware of two things:

1) The American Dream has been completely undermined by chronic disease and trauma.

2) AI will and needs to be integrated into life - but it will be only as safe as those who build, use, and teach it.

We’ve spent our careers trying to understand how the body breaks, and how it heals. But what we never expected was just how much healing we’d find—not in theory, but in practice. Not in the lab, but on the land.

In a rented home, on a students stipend, and a lot of heart, we started living differently. We rehabilitated our first farm animals. We began growing our own food. And slowly, profoundly, we watched something shift—not just in the animals or the soil, but in our family.

The rhythm of care, the quiet dignity of animals recovering, the act of feeding your children something you grew—it accelerated a kind of healing we didn’t know we needed. And we knew we couldn’t keep it to ourselves.

Penelope’s Pondstead and Sanctuary is our family’s living answer to that call.

A place where:

  • No animal should suffer from neglect when there are hands willing to help.

  • People—especially those carrying trauma—can reconnect through rhythm, responsibility, and a slower kind of purpose.

  • No land should be left depleted when it can be restored.

  • No family should feel disconnected from food, nature, or each other.

  • And no community should go without the skills, resources, and hope to build something better.

We didn’t just start a nonprofit.
We spent our own money and time doing much of this mission in a rented home, now we want to expand and make something more perminant for our family and the community.

We’ve invested everything into this vision. The 501(c)(3) is formed. This isn’t a project for “someday.” This is now. This is real. This is the life we’ve chosen—and the one we’re sharing. Now we’re saving to secure the land that will bring it all to life:
A working regenerative homestead and sanctuary.
A community for animals, families, and futures worth protecting.

If you’ve ever wanted to support something real—from the ground up—this is your moment.

Help us build a sanctuary where animals, land, and people all get a second chance.