Lambs Farm is a non-profit organization in Libertyville, Illinois, that provides vocational and residential services for over 250 adults with developmental disabilities. Located on a 72-acre (290,000 m2) campus, Lambs Farm includes several family attractions, including a petting zoo, a pet shop, a miniature golf course, several small amusement rides, a restaurant, a thrift shop, a country store and a bakery. Lambs Farm community members work at these attractions, or at a nearby vocational center.
Lambs Farm was formed in the 1960s by Corrine Owen and Robert Terese. Owen and Terese had been teaching at a school for adults with developmental disabilities, and were discouraged by the limited opportunities available to such people. In 1961, they opened a pet store near Chicago's Gold Coast and employed twelve of their students, who enthusiastically helped tend to the animals. Four years later, Owen and Therese acquired a farm in Libertyville with the help of W. Clement Stone and began developing the current Lambs Farm facility. By the late 1980s, Lambs Farm was hosting over 300,000 visitors a year, making it the third most popular attraction in Lake County, Illinois (behind Great America and the Ravinia Festival).
The farm takes its name from John 21:15, in which Jesus tells St. Peter, "Feed my lambs."
Famous quotes containing the words lambs and/or farm:
“When I from black and he from white cloud free,
And round the tent of Godlike lambs we joy,
I’ll shade him from the heat till he can bear
To lean in joy upon our father’s knee;
And then I’ll stand and stroke his silver hair,
And be like him, and he will then love me.”
—William Blake (1757–1827)
“It might be seen by what tenure men held the earth. The smallest stream is mediterranean sea, a smaller ocean creek within the land, where men may steer by their farm bounds and cottage lights. For my own part, but for the geographers, I should hardly have known how large a portion of our globe is water, my life has chiefly passed within so deep a cove. Yet I have sometimes ventured as far as to the mouth of my Snug Harbor.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)