The Sanctuary Needs You!
Donation protected
First of all, thank you for reading! That in itself means a lot to us! Please read on to learn why we’re in desperate and URGENT need right now, and please share!
What once started as just a huge love and compassion for animals, has over the course of many years, grown into something bigger than I could’ve ever imagined!
From teaching classmates how to be kind to ants and mending a snail shell when I was in school, to rescuing reptiles, to hand rearing an occasional squirrel, mouse or pigeon, my entire family has an endless love of all living things - to somehow now having a little patch of land with a couple of cows, goats, sheep, pig, turkey, chickens, geese… you get the idea!
BUT as well as that, we can see so crystal clear that being in the company of other animals is so therapeutic for humans too and so the retreat space was born, Komaia is a beautiful retreat space for people in the heart of Honeybee Sanctuary for the animals.
Just a few days ago - we hit an emergency situation!
If you’ve followed our story so far, you’ll know that it’s not been without huge struggles. The truth is we are at capacity with the animals we had already - and with 2 of those animals being half tonne, split hoofed boys, as flipping gorgeous as they are - they churn up the land unbelievably! For even just Bruce and Denzel alone we NEED to find a new field to rent! (Or buy if someone decides to donate us a fortune or we win the lottery!)
We’ve needed to replace animal houses, improve fencing for our expert escapee goats who love the look of our neighbour’s pristinely kept lawn! Vet bills and feed bills galore and ‘mudcontrol’ (www.mudcontrol.co.uk) which we’ve still not been able to afford so have instead substituted by buying many tonnes of drainage sand (thanks to Dandy’s for the discount!)
It’s been a HUGE learning curve, there has been some seriously hard work, sleepless nights, many tears, and many times we’ve had to consider if we can continue at all - there were newspaper articles, radio interviews, public events and more but at the heart of it all, our ‘why’ remains the same.
A few days ago we were reminded of the ‘why’ and encountered a situation where our only choice was to ‘act now’ it’s a delicate situation and not at all black and white but what we can say is that it’s seen us in an emergency status with more than 40 more mouths to feed!
There are now many more residents here at the sanctuary including goats, a ewe, geese, chickens, guinea fowl and even a couple of ferrets! - all birds are all still in flock down so with many of these new friends being birds, we must urgently build a new aviary! The ferrets are in temporary housing and so we must urgently source / build a new and secure space for them, one of the little goats is a handsome boy but as we already have a boy, we could do with a separate sleeping space to allow them time to work out their uncertainties with each other, not to mention the feed bill that is suddenly going to be substantially higher!
The amount we’re appealing for doesn’t scratch the surface of the costs we’re facing to take things where they need to be BUT we’re working now with Business Wales in the hopes of setting things up in a way that we may be able to have more people involved with the physical work at least, a lovely lady from the RSPCA has been in touch and is keen to try and support us, the utterly brilliant people at MKM building supplies who’ve already been huge supporters and have heard our plea again, the amazing team of hardworking staff at Lidl, Holywell who offer ongoing support and then of course with the new retreat space, Komaia, that has the guidance of an amazing and compassion business coach, Sarah McBride, we’re really confident we will eventually get to a space where the sanctuary can be self sufficient! Not to mention my wonderful fiancé Craig who happens to be an excellent builder and joiner and spends every spare waking moment working through an endless list of jobs to be done!
Our needs right now however are of an absolute emergency status!
We really hope that the work we’re doing can help lots of humans and animals for many years to come, right now it’s a crucial point, the next few months will determine our entire future.
This money would help us fill up the straw and hay storage and get a decent bank of animal feed instead of always panicking when we’re down to the last bits, sort out the urgent housing needs of some of the newest residents and maybe through your shares - help us reach someone that may have land available to rent allowing more suitable space for our many animals and also giving us chance to recover the land we already have.
We’d still love to purchase the ‘Mudcontrol’ but maybe by the other end of the summer, with all your love and a good dose of luck, we might be in a very different position and be able to get it done!
Here’s hoping huge thanks in advance for every donation, share and suggestion!
When all the new residents are settled and we have some certainty, we’ll have a few open days and invite all our supporters to come and enjoy some time here with the beautiful animals you’ve helped us to offer safe and (hopefully permanent ) abundantly loving homes to!
Please make sure to follow our pages to keep up to date with our progress!
Buckets of love and gratitude to you
What once started as just a huge love and compassion for animals, has over the course of many years, grown into something bigger than I could’ve ever imagined!
From teaching classmates how to be kind to ants and mending a snail shell when I was in school, to rescuing reptiles, to hand rearing an occasional squirrel, mouse or pigeon, my entire family has an endless love of all living things - to somehow now having a little patch of land with a couple of cows, goats, sheep, pig, turkey, chickens, geese… you get the idea!
BUT as well as that, we can see so crystal clear that being in the company of other animals is so therapeutic for humans too and so the retreat space was born, Komaia is a beautiful retreat space for people in the heart of Honeybee Sanctuary for the animals.
Just a few days ago - we hit an emergency situation!
If you’ve followed our story so far, you’ll know that it’s not been without huge struggles. The truth is we are at capacity with the animals we had already - and with 2 of those animals being half tonne, split hoofed boys, as flipping gorgeous as they are - they churn up the land unbelievably! For even just Bruce and Denzel alone we NEED to find a new field to rent! (Or buy if someone decides to donate us a fortune or we win the lottery!)
We’ve needed to replace animal houses, improve fencing for our expert escapee goats who love the look of our neighbour’s pristinely kept lawn! Vet bills and feed bills galore and ‘mudcontrol’ (www.mudcontrol.co.uk) which we’ve still not been able to afford so have instead substituted by buying many tonnes of drainage sand (thanks to Dandy’s for the discount!)
It’s been a HUGE learning curve, there has been some seriously hard work, sleepless nights, many tears, and many times we’ve had to consider if we can continue at all - there were newspaper articles, radio interviews, public events and more but at the heart of it all, our ‘why’ remains the same.
A few days ago we were reminded of the ‘why’ and encountered a situation where our only choice was to ‘act now’ it’s a delicate situation and not at all black and white but what we can say is that it’s seen us in an emergency status with more than 40 more mouths to feed!
There are now many more residents here at the sanctuary including goats, a ewe, geese, chickens, guinea fowl and even a couple of ferrets! - all birds are all still in flock down so with many of these new friends being birds, we must urgently build a new aviary! The ferrets are in temporary housing and so we must urgently source / build a new and secure space for them, one of the little goats is a handsome boy but as we already have a boy, we could do with a separate sleeping space to allow them time to work out their uncertainties with each other, not to mention the feed bill that is suddenly going to be substantially higher!
The amount we’re appealing for doesn’t scratch the surface of the costs we’re facing to take things where they need to be BUT we’re working now with Business Wales in the hopes of setting things up in a way that we may be able to have more people involved with the physical work at least, a lovely lady from the RSPCA has been in touch and is keen to try and support us, the utterly brilliant people at MKM building supplies who’ve already been huge supporters and have heard our plea again, the amazing team of hardworking staff at Lidl, Holywell who offer ongoing support and then of course with the new retreat space, Komaia, that has the guidance of an amazing and compassion business coach, Sarah McBride, we’re really confident we will eventually get to a space where the sanctuary can be self sufficient! Not to mention my wonderful fiancé Craig who happens to be an excellent builder and joiner and spends every spare waking moment working through an endless list of jobs to be done!
Our needs right now however are of an absolute emergency status!
We really hope that the work we’re doing can help lots of humans and animals for many years to come, right now it’s a crucial point, the next few months will determine our entire future.
This money would help us fill up the straw and hay storage and get a decent bank of animal feed instead of always panicking when we’re down to the last bits, sort out the urgent housing needs of some of the newest residents and maybe through your shares - help us reach someone that may have land available to rent allowing more suitable space for our many animals and also giving us chance to recover the land we already have.
We’d still love to purchase the ‘Mudcontrol’ but maybe by the other end of the summer, with all your love and a good dose of luck, we might be in a very different position and be able to get it done!
Here’s hoping huge thanks in advance for every donation, share and suggestion!
When all the new residents are settled and we have some certainty, we’ll have a few open days and invite all our supporters to come and enjoy some time here with the beautiful animals you’ve helped us to offer safe and (hopefully permanent ) abundantly loving homes to!
Please make sure to follow our pages to keep up to date with our progress!
Buckets of love and gratitude to you
Organizer
Katey Elizabeth
Organizer
Wales