RESCUE & THE ART OF HEALING NOW

THISTLE FARMS

Rescues are usually not just single acts. Once someone is out of immediate danger, they often have to heal and find new ways to carry on. There is an art to rescue on the deepest level.

Thistle Farms helps women rescued from lives of prostitution, addiction, abuse, and human trafficking by offering ongoing programs, services and community.

Based in Nashville, TN, the organization employs survivors through its social enterprises: Thistle Farms Home & Body, Thistle Stop Cafe, artisan studio, and Thistle Farms Global.

Founded in 1997 by Becca Stevens, Thistle Farms includes a two-year residential program, education and training programs, workshops, and advocacy services for hundreds of women yearly.

Thistle Farms celebrates women's freedom. Its community is made up of circles of survivors, donors, volunteers, residents, graduates, producers, and social media advocates.

At Thistle Farms, women who have survived so much physical and emotional damage and pain are given a chance to heal, restore their dignity, and learn to build successful lives for themselves all within a safe supportive community.

Stevens, a survivor of sexual abuse at the hands of a church elder when she was a child, has a personal connection to these women and their need for rescue. Consider her Thistle Farms’ credo: In the end, love is the most powerful force for change in the world.

Thistles, the spiky plants that grow out of hard, dry, rough places, grow in the streets in many of the poor neighborhoods of Nashville and surrounds. Considered a nuisance weed, since they can hurt you if you touch them, thistles produce beautiful purple flowers amidst all the barbs. They inspired Stevens to call her organization Thistle Farms.

Over 80% of the women who are helped by Thistle Farms succeed in establishing healthy new lives. They are soft bright purple flowers emerging from tough, prickly, painful places.

Today, Thistle Farms also reaches women through 18 global partners (including Rwanda and Ecuador) and 22 sister communities in the U.S.

Check out the beautiful bath & body products, jewelry, accessories, apparel, and more made by the women of Thistle Farms. Think about the women who made them, all by hand, and feel gratitude. Each comes with a card that says “Love Heals.”

When you dip into a jar of Thistle Farms body butter, sip their tea, or wear a pair of their earrings, you become a part of the rescue story. The women who handmade each of them become a part of your story too.

Becca Stevens is an Episcopal priest, social entrepreneur, and author of 9 books, along with being founder and president of Thistle Farms. She was named a 2016 CNN Hero, a White House “Champion of Change, a Humanitarian of the Year (Small Business Council of America & TJ Martell Foundation).

Check out Stevens’ latest book, “Letters from the Farm: A Simple Path for a Deeper Spiritual Life” and the PBS documentary, “A Path Appears.”

Read more about Beautiful Rescues in Beautiful Rescues Ripple Out To Save The World Now, Sea Lion Rescues Save Us All and Rescue Our Farms & We Rescue Ourselves Now.

And check out more beautiful things happening now in BN Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact Daily Fix posts.

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IMAGE CREDITS:

1. Image: by Ken Owen. “Untitled.”
2. Image: Courtesy of Thistle Farms.
3. Image: Courtesy of Thistle Farms.
4. Image: Courtesy of Thistle Farms.
5. Image: Courtesy of Thistle Farms. “Harvesting Thistle.”
6. Image: by Ken Slade. “Thistle.”
7. Image: by Jonas Bergsten. “Thistle.”
8. Image: by Melissa Breeland. Courtesy of Thistle Farms. “Thistle.”
9. Image: Courtesy of Thistle Farms. “Thistle Farms Product Range.”
10. Image: Courtesy of Thistle Farms. Blending Moringa Tea, a collaboration with Moringa Madres.
11. Image: Courtesy of Thistle Farms. “Canon Gideon With Becca Stevens in Uganda.”
12. Image: Courtesy of Thistle Farms.
13. Image: by Peggy Napier. Courtesy of Thistle Farms.
14. Image: by BN App - Download now!
15. Image: by Kerrie Lloyd-Dawson, of A Garden Less Ordinary. “Cirsium rivulare Trevor's Blue Wonder (Brook Thistle).”