Local North Carolina Farm Helps Countless Animals and Children in Need
Kopper Top Life Learning Center is an animal therapy farm, specializing in aiding children with special needs. It’s also the perfect volunteer opportunity for Elon University students in need of service hours. The farm is just miles away from campus in Liberty, North Carolina, and it could use the help of Elon students.
(Courtesy of Kopper Top Life Learning Center, Inc. Facebook)
After working with the Alamance County Parks and Recreation department for about a decade, Kopper Top founder and owner Deborah Meridith found her true passion helping children with special needs on her farm.
“It just happened,” Meridith says. “It was God telling me what to do.”
Meridith has owned the farm for over 30 years, helping countless families and animals along the way. Along with her team, Meridith’s helps students with special needs learn basic life skills by first teaching them the responsibility of taking care of animals and, more specifically, riding horses.
The farm is a place of acceptance and respect, important values to Meridith and her students. All are welcome as long as they can follow a set of simple rules guided by those values. “All the animals get along here, and I expect the same from everyone else,” she says.
Volunteer opportunities at the farm include feeding animals, cleaning up the farm, and assisting Kopper Top with other necessary tasks.
Elon Volunteers! Kopper Top coordinator and Elon sophomore Kasey Fountain encourages students across campus to take advantage of the opportunity to help this amazing organization and Meridith herself. “The work [Meridith] is doing is what’s most important to her,” Fountain says. “She puts the animals and kids before anything else.”
Fountain has been fortunate enough to witness some of Meridith’s sessions with her students and continues to be encouraged by her incredible work. “I wish more Elon kids knew or cared about the farm,” she says. “It will encourage them to look past appearances.”
Although the organization has unfortunately been struggling recently, Meridith hasn’t let it get her down, an inspiring attitude in these particularly difficult times. She understands that the work she’s doing right now is what she’s meant to do, and she’s determined to stick with it.
“[The farm] can give me a lot of anxiety and grief wondering if we are going to be open tomorrow,” Meridith says. “But God keeps saying, ‘You’re going to be fine.’”
Despite numerous obstacles along the way, Meridith continues to give rescue animals and and kids alike new opportunities to grow. Kopper Top is home to more than 150 rescue animals and is visited by dozens of special needs students who rely on Meridith and all of the farm’s volunteers. .
We hope more Elon students become aware of the unbelievable work that Meridith’s organization does for children and animals across North Carolina. Volunteering at the farm is an eye-opening experience and helps so many children and animals along the way.