After her honorable discharge from the Marines in 2000, Aimee Morris spent the next 15 years of her life working in health care, including 12 years as a registered nurse in York County. She loved helping people but became frustrated with the common methods of healing.

“The patients would say that they were zombified by the medication or that it wasn’t helping,” Aimee says. “If they took the pills, they didn’t think about it as much, but they weren’t functioning well either because of the medication.”

Aimee sought alternatives.

“I wanted to keep making changes in the system but kept meeting opposition,” Aimee says. “The outcomes weren’t always positive, and it provoked me to make a change of my own.”

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She started researching what other countries were doing in 2015 and came across something called “care farms.” Care farming is method popular in Western Europe where patients use farming practices – like animal husbandry and woodland management – to promote mental health.

In 2017, she started Glenn Hope Care Farm in Felton. The name comes from the hope they want to provide and from Glenn Cunningham, Aimee’s grandfather who served in World War II.

“Our programming provides an open, disarming environment,” Aimee says. “Veterans are in the fresh air, exposed to natural sunlight and have the physical activity needed to release different chemicals from the body needed for wellness.”