Freya’s sanctuary now runs on donations and a small army of like-minded “soft rebels”—people who have realized that compassion is not finite. She teaches workshops on “non-violent pest control” and speaks at elementary schools, where children listen with rapt attention as she explains that every creature, no matter how small, has a role.
After a brief, miserable stint in corporate logistics—where she watched colleagues climb ladders by stepping on others—Freya walked away. She cashed out her meager 401(k) and bought a dilapidated three-acre property. Today, it’s home to the ‘Second Chance Sanctuary,’ a nonprofit that takes in animals others have given up on: a three-legged fox, a blind raven, and an astonishing number of flies. wouldnt hurt a fly freya parker
Yes, flies.
“If you can’t be kind to a fly,” she tells them, holding one gently between her thumb and forefinger before releasing it into the sun, “how will you be kind to a person when they annoy you?” Freya’s sanctuary now runs on donations and a
Freya Parker wouldn’t hurt a fly. And in a strange, beautiful way, that might just make her the toughest person any of us will ever meet. She cashed out her meager 401(k) and bought
Outside her kitchen window, a half-dozen flies buzz lazily around a bowl of overripe bananas she leaves out for them. She doesn’t see pests. She sees neighbors.
Freya’s philosophy was forged in fire. She grew up on a small farm where her father believed in “practical solutions”: a sick chicken was wrung, a stray cat was shooed with a boot, and any insect inside the house was met with a rolled-up newspaper. Young Freya would hide in the hayloft, secretly nursing injured field mice back to health in a shoebox lined with dandelions.