Helping Hands, Loving Hearts

Marie and Isaiah Koolstra, Jorge Ramos, Dennis Koolstra, Lizbeth Ramos and Wilbert Koolstra

Daisy Lane Dairy is more than a source of employment for its employees and more than a farm for its surrounding rural Colorado community — it’s a place where everyone can gather and receive assistance.

Dennis and Jennifer Koolstra’s family dairy farm in Cope, Colo., isn’t just a farm; it’s the heart of their rural community. About 50 employees call Daisy Lane Dairy home, and the farm is central to the surrounding town, where at least a third of the students at the local school come from parents who work on the dairy.

“It’s important for us to be a part of our community and do the right things by our community,” Dennis says. “That little school would struggle to be here if it weren't for the dairy. We’re proud of the positive economic impact that the dairy has in this area.”

Due to the farm’s remote location, Dennis and Jennifer provide most of the housing for their employees on the farm and consider them like family.

“We have formed close relationships with a lot of our employees and their families, especially when they are first starting out here,” Jennifer says. “We hope that they see how much we value them: Value them as people, value them for their skills and value them for what they can do.”

Being close to their employees has given them ties to the Hispanic culture, for which both Dennis and Jennifer are thankful. “It has been very enriching, and I’m glad that Dennis and I have had that opportunity, and our kids as well,” she says. The couple’s three biological children — Isaiah, 25; Micah, 21; and Samuel, 18 — all helped on the farm growing up and continue to be involved in some way.

Where it began

Jennifer Koolstra and Aracely Estrada

Dennis' parents, Wilbert and Marie, founded Daisy Lane Dairy in its original location in Berthoud, Colo., with just one cow in the 1970s. They hadn’t expected to start their own dairy farm, but when a neighboring dairy farmer couldn’t pay Wilbert for helping with relief milking, he gave him a milk cow.

“They would hire different help and people at different times to help, but really the dairy grew with the hard work and values of Wilbert and Marie,” Jennifer says.

Dennis fondly remembers growing up watching his father dairy, and he says it was a spiritual experience for him in his formative years.

“I remember growing up, my dad was always a strong man,” Dennis says. “He just about worked himself to the bone, and he liked the work. I grew up around a hard work ethic, and dairy farming taught me a lot about honesty, integrity and my relationship with the Lord.

As a farmer, you’re around nature, and you’re around things that are growing and living — it’s hard to not see God out there, too.”

After his father developed an aggressive degenerative eye disease that left him unable to care for the farm himself, Dennis was faced with a tough decision about continuing his family’s legacy. He ultimately decided to leave his university one year early to take over his family’s dairy farm, and he and Jennifer have made it a point every step of the way to bring people together and provide their community with assistance however they could.

When one of Dennis and Jennifer’s employees, Salvador Ramos, experienced a tragic loss after his wife and son died in a car accident, the Koolstras made sure the couple’s surviving four children — Marco, 24; Arturo, 22; Jorge, 14; and Lizbeth, 14 — were provided for. Since the accident, Dennis and Jennifer have become like a second set of parents to the children, and ensured Salvador had the resources he needed to move forward as a single parent.

“Right then, I'd made the decision that I was going to be a part of their lives, and this is going to be something that's going to be full time,” Jennifer says. “I'm not going to be in and out. I'm going to make this commitment right now.”

Since then, the blended family has become one, and they enjoy time together like any traditional family — from competing in family game nights to spending Thanksgiving and Christmas together.

Helping the community

Joan Salinas, Oscar Neveraz, Isaiah Koolstra and Dennis Koolstra

Dennis and Jennifer have also tried to make Daisy Lane Dairy welcoming to all in their community. The couple founded a nonprofit ministry organization to help their employees and members of the surrounding community thrive by providing resources for child care, counseling, education, legal help and more.

“Our location in northeastern Colorado does not have a lot of resources for people in general, much less someone who is an immigrant or speaks English as a second language,” Jennifer says. “We wanted to have a place for people to be able to go to get any of those kinds of resources that I think most people take for granted.”

The ministry started in the front yard of their property when they realized it wasn’t as easy for their employees to find a place to worship and gather as it was for them, largely due to many of them speaking English as a second language. Today, the ministry, Centro de Nueva Esperanza, is located in nearby Yuma, Colo.

“Our mission statement was to serve the underserved, and Dennis and I felt like we couldn't do what we do without our employees,” Jennifer says.

Through the trials and tribulations of running a family-owned dairy farm, Dennis and Jennifer have remained close and helped their employees live fulfilling, healthy lives however they could — all while producing delicious dairy products for families everywhere to enjoy.

“I consider myself proud to be a dairy farmer,” Jennifer says.

“Not only am I proud of the product that we are able to produce through our cows, but I'm proud of the opportunities and jobs and relationships that our dairy farm has been able to provide and create, not only for other families, but just for our family. I think it's an experience that not everyone gets to have, and I'm Joan Salinas and Dennis Koolstra glad that I have been able to be a part of that.”