Helping wildlife
I volunteer with two local wildlife rehabilitation organizations in Northern Virginia, which is extremely enjoyable and rewarding. I’ve been asked in the past how readers might contribute something in thanks for the recipes and tutorials I post. Although I expect absolutely nothing, and will never put ads on this site to help pay server costs, if you do want to thank me, or if you just want to help wildlife, I will be eternally grateful if you donate to one of the organizations I am a part of. Both organizations are registered non-profits and run entirely on donations. Wildlife rehab is not at all funded by the state or federal government.
I am on the board of directors of and am an active volunteer with Dogue Hollow Wildlife Sanctuary. We specialize in raccoons (you’ll see tons of raccoon pictures in my blog) and also take opossums. As a board member, I am a little more involved in the fundraising aspect of Dogue Hollow. I’m also a Virginia state-licensed raccoon and opossum rehabber.
I am also an active volunteer with the Raptor Conservancy of Virginia. RCV admits and rehabs injured and orphaned raptors until they are ready for release, and also has a number of non-releasable education birds we house and take to educational programs. Most of our patients have been hit by cars. Our rehab birds are first admitted to our “intensive care” unit and when ready are transferred to large flight cages where they must prove they can fly and hunt before being released.
Direct donations to either of these organizations are VERY much appreciated. Another very easy – and free! – way to donate is through Amazon’s AmazonSmile program. This program allows you to select your favorite charity and have Amazon donate 0.5% of most of your purchases to that charity, at no cost to you, simply by shopping at smile.amazon.com instead of www.amazon.com. Although you are certainly free to choose any charity you’d like, if you can’t decide, Dogue Hollow Wildlife Sanctuary and Raptor Conservancy of Virginia are both excellent choices! Even very small donations of this sort make a HUGE difference to very small organizations like these, so choosing one of them is a way to make sure your money is going DIRECTLY to helping wildlife.