Look at the Person, Not the Mistakes: Tosh Farms Opens New Doors for Women in Ag
It’s all too easy to judge a book by it’s cover, isn’t it?
As the mom of an 8-year-old, this hits me every week when we stop at the public library and my daughter peruses the shelves for her next stack of books to read. Each week, she asks for my help and I look up a favorite book from years ago and excitedly show her, only to have her brush my suggestion off because it looks boring.
Admittedly, the cover is faded and the book is worn. But the words on the pages are worth looking past the rough edges, I remind her.
It’s not unlike the conversation I had with Amy Halbrook, the barn manager at the Crutchfield sow unit at Tosh Farms, during a recent visit as we walked through the barn together.
Every day she works with an unlikely group of women who may look a little rough around the edges – their stories forever marked by addiction, alcoholism, abuse and pain. Still, Halbrook sees something different. She sees a reason for hope.
Nobody asks to go down some of these hard roads of drug addiction and alcoholism, she says. Women with hardened pasts and heartbreaking stories are finding a new path to healing in a vocational training program at Tosh Farms through Hope Center Ministries, a long-term rehabilitation recovery center that helps women get back on track after battling addiction.
“Some of their histories involve things you would not wish on anybody,” Halbrook says. “But it's awesome to be able to give them a second chance. It makes me wonder what could happen in this world if there were more opportunities like this for people to get a second chance in life to be successful.”
As some of the women in the program opened up to me about their path to Tosh Farms, I couldn’t help but be starstruck by Halbrook and the way she runs her barn.
She’s firm, but caring. She’s objective, but sensitive. She’s smart, but down-to-earth. She’s patient, but gets things done. But most importantly, her ability to see people for who they are is something I will never forget.
There’s a reason her barn is thriving despite the high turnover rate of women coming in and graduating out of the program. She’s found a way to create a culture that inspires, challenges and grows people. Regardless of how long an employee works in her barn, she says the commitment to help people is worth any extra work it creates.
“If I had any advice for an employer looking to hire a woman from the Hope Center, or any treatment center, it would be, don’t look at the paper. Look at the person. We’ve all made mistakes in our lives. Theirs is just documented. They all deserve a second chance,” Halbrook says. “Those decisions do not define who they are as people. To give people a second chance makes me feel like I’m doing something to help.”
Stay tuned for the full story.
Farm Journal's PORK celebrates the amazing contributions of women in the pork industry all year round, but especially today on International Women's Day.
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