Sweetwater Farms is owned and operated by, Susan Lurz, and was established as a business in 2017. She purchased the land in 2016 as a beautiful family farm to raise her daughter and her amazing farm animals but Susan quickly learned that the land she now owned was extremely special and indeed had another purpose. 

Before buying the farm that is now Sweetwater, Susan lived in the North Carolina mountains and was a children’s book author. Having just published her first novel, The Sweetwater Animal Society, she quickly realized that she could bring to life the fictional farm she wrote about in her book. So, taking a leap of faith, she built additional farm buildings, rescued more animals, and began providing field trips to local schools and child-care centers. 

Without knowing it, Susan was carrying on a rich tradition of empowerment that this farm had provided to all those who owned it before her. Known at one time as, The Old Henderson Place, it was a 120-acre working farm that was purchased in 1947 by two brothers, George and Murray Kelly, when they returned home from their service in WWII. Unfortunately, they found themselves in a joint venture of a farm that was “washed out with poor soil and eroded gullies.” But the Kelly brothers’ misfortune ended up being a blessing in disguise.

Unbeknownst to them, county agents had been given the mandate to find the most “eroded, run down farm” in the county to be given a “Miracle Day” makeover and the Kelly farm was chosen. On October 14th, 1948, the Kelly brothers were among the 60,000 spectators watching as a miracle was performed in one day on their farm in Mecklenburg County. The farm was being transformed from a useless tract of worn and battered land to an oasis of alfalfa, wheat, barley, oats, and corn. There were cotton fields, fruit orchards, vegetable gardens, and pastures for horses and cows to graze.

Farmers and city folks alike marveled as a bulldozer dug a two-acre pond that was brimming with fish by nightfall. The Kelly brothers watched in amazement as some 300 men and over a half-million dollars’ worth of machinery transformed their farm. It was said that the accomplishments achieved in that one day would have taken the average farmer twenty years to complete on his own.

Today Sweetwater Farms sits on 13 of those “Miracle Day” acres located right in the middle of the original Kelly farm. Even though the 13-acre parcel has changed hands a few times throughout the years, it still carries forth the spirit and energy of empowering others and the will of the human spirit.

At Sweetwater Farms, children will learn what it feels like to belong or to be part of something greater than themselves. By being in nature, surrounded by animals, they will learn kindness and compassion and how to offer respect to others. Just like this land nurtured the Kelly brothers and their families so many years ago it continues to do so today for Susan and her family and we hope yours too.