Customer Testimonial: Wes Hollingsworth

Hey, my name is Wes Hollingsworth. I am the CEO of Hollywood Outdoors Farms, which is a 501c3 nonprofit where we basically, basically bring the outdoors to people with children, teens, adults with intellectual, developmental, emotional and financial difficulties, disabled veterans, active duty military, law enforcement, first responders. Basically, I had a vision overcoming some adversity in my life that made me realize that it's the simple things in life and that can't, never could and that anything's achievable if you dream big enough and you followed your heart and your gut and used your mind to complement it. So what we're doing here is we're providing a nature experience. Basically. I'm a conservationist at heart. I'm a purist, and I'm a big believer in imprint and allowing nature to help you work. Working smarter, not harder. I've got 500 hummingbirds this year. I do a lot of stuff, all habitat. I plant every field. I do everything I can. Purple martin houses, bluebird boxes, you name it. Got a 28, 21 acre lake and a 5 acre pond that has a concrete driveway around it to where people in wheelchairs can access the lake. All our deer stands are all wheelchair accessible. We've got five dove fields, we've got a duck pond. And we're moving into phases next year to where we're going to see how many ducks we get this year. And working with Ducks Unlimited and some other companies and other organizations to improve habitat and wetlands preservation. So we're doing a lot of conservation stuff on this farm as well. We're going to open up an aquarium. All this will be in a rail fence with an equestrian center and a barn. And we're going to do therapeutic riding center for kids with disabilities. I worked a lot with that and I know that there's a huge thing with equine and it does many, many benefits. You know, autism, it does with sports, with sensory issues, cerebral palsy, it helps them work with posture. I mean, there's just a lot of benefits that animals, I mean, animals are God's greatest gift and my opinion, and they bring everybody joy. And so what I'm creating is a place where anybody can come and, you know, and experience something that is so divine and so beautiful. So we are creating habitat, we manage, we do hunt. I didn't hunt this year. And no matter my turkey populations and incredible. Just by leaving an imprint, it's like never shooting your duck pond your first year. There's things, all that you got to think, you know, kind of in the old expression, to be able to see the forest through the trees. But anyway, it's a process and we're building day by day, one day at a time. But what was a year ago and what is today are two different tracts of land. And I can only imagine what it's going to look like in five to 10 years, and if not even three. So we're really excited. My family's involved with this, my community's involved with this. And, you know, buying this land might have been the best thing I ever did in my life and being able for the rest of the of my adult life, to be able to give back and help other people, because it doesn't matter what you have, nobody remembers what you had or any of that when you're gone. It's what you did. So I want to leave my legacy of helping other people. And then this will never die. Whoever I pass this on to will have to committed to this place. So this place will thrive for years and years and years to come. So anyway, thanks for your time and God bless you all. Have a great day.