If it’s Monday, Wednesday or Saturday, Melani Ellis knows she’s going to have a great day. That’s when she leads an hour-long tour that introduces visitors from around the world to Leilani Farm Sanctuary and its mission of humane education and saving animals suffering from abuse, neglect and abandonment. For her, the experience is always fun, joyful and uplifting.

 “Visitors enjoy being in a beautiful environment and interacting with animals who are happy and healthy,” Melani says. “I love showing them that animals are incredible individuals with unique personalities.”

During her tour, guests meet, offer snacks to and brush several of our rescued animals and hear their heart-wrenching stories. Thankfully, every story has a happy ending.

One of Melani’s favorite residents is Charlotte, a friendly pig who looks forward to getting acquainted with visitors. When she was a piglet, she, her mom and siblings escaped from a hog farm. Hunters saw them living along the Hana Highway and set traps. Her family was caught and killed.

“Luckily, a kind person released Charlotte from a snare before the hunters came back,” Melani says. “Her right hind leg was fractured, but she now gets around just fine, albeit with a limp. She’s incredibly sweet, and when she looks at me with her beautiful, inquisitive eyes, so full of intelligence, my heart just melts.”

Jazz, an affectionate cat who loves to be cuddled, often accompanies the groups on the farm tours. Recently, a man in an all-terrain wheelchair held Jazz on his lap the entire time. He maneuvered the vehicle on rocky, uneven spots amazingly well, and Jazz hung on and enjoyed the ride.

Humane education is a subtle but important part of Melani’s narrative. For example, when the group stops in the chicken aviary, she briefly describes conditions in a typical factory farm.

“Many visitors are shocked to learn that broiler chickens raised for meat are crowded together by the thousands on floors of warehouses, and egg-laying hens are crammed inside battery cages.” Melani says. “Chickens raised for meat are sent to slaughterhouses when they’re a few weeks to a few months old.

People often tell her that because they’re vegetarian and consume only eggs and dairy products; they’re not contributing to the mistreatment of animals. But, Melani gently points out, dairy cows and hens raised for eggs live in equally bad or worse conditions than animals raised for meat and they go to the same slaughterhouses. Chicks’ sex is determined on their first day of life, and the unwanted males are killed shortly thereafter.

“What I like most about being Leilani Farm Sanctuary’s tour guide is having the opportunity to shed light on the cruelties of the animal agriculture industry and plant a seed in visitors’ minds,” Melani says. “They leave with more knowledge and hopefully a different perspective. I feel like I’m making a difference.”

The sanctuary also hosts humane education programs, school field trips, activities for elders and therapeutic animal encounters for at-risk youth and special-needs visitors. Email info@leilanifarmsanctuary.org for more information.