Lollypop Farm & Its Role in Humane Society History

During the 1950's Humane Society director Ray Naramore, a former teacher, placed great emphasis on building our organization's humane education programs. Naramore believed that the best and most efficient means of promoting kindness and pet owner responsibility was to make learning about animals fun. While he was criticized by some that believed that entertainment had no place in humane education, Naramore was a pioneer in the field of humane education. He devised a way to educate the public and draw them to the animal shelter, and made it fun. Thus, Lollypop Farm was born.

In the late 1950's, the Humane Society left the Citv of Rochester and took up residence in a large building on West Henrietta Road, south of South Towne Plaza. The spacious building and property permitted the society to handle greater numbers of unwanted pets and to open its petting zoo to attract visitors to the shelter. According to notes from board meetings of the time, the farm was actually started with some very nontraditional animals, which included English fallow deer, llamas and pygmy burros, the majority of which were purchased from the famous Catskill Game Farm in downstate NY. All the animals born on the farm were bottle-fed which made them immediately tame and people oriented.

According to documents from this period, Lollypop Farm was rapidly growing in popularity as a family attraction where "kids of all ages" could watch, feed, photograph and interact with a variety of domestic and exotic creatures. In 1963, recognizing that commercial development was imminent in the Town of Henrietta, the Society accepted a generous donation from Hiram Marks of a 133-acre site in Perinton to serve as its next headquarters. On May 20th, 1966 the Humane Society and its Lollypop Farm petting zoo moved to its current location in the town of Perinton.