COVID-19 touched our hearts, our deepest fears, and made us revisit our animal care contingency plans in case the worst happened. It severely impacted our fundraising efforts and supply chain – something we’ve strived to be open and honest about with you. Because of your incredibly generous outpouring of support and donations, we were able to rescue TWENTY-FIVE new animals in 2020! YOU made these rescues possible. Thank you!!
Because of your donations towards their rescue and care, we were able to take in more chickens this year than we ever have before. Most of these 2020 rescues are Cornish Cross, a breed created by humans to grow fast and large, in order to be slaughtered for meat within 8 weeks of being born. These same chickens are typically used in the religious Kaporos ritual, where chickens are swung overhead by a practitioner by their delicate wings or legs. With all that these sweet chickens have been born into, and all that they’ve endured, we are especially proud to welcome so many Cornish Cross Kaporos survivors to our flock.
Today, each of the 17 Cornish Cross chickens get to live out the rest of their lives exploring the grass and enjoying the sunshine with their friends, instead of dying alone and scared. You made that possible. Thank you.
✰ We rounded out 2020 with an amazing Emergency Preparedness for the Animals Matching Donor Challenge, where private donors and supporters of the Sanctuary offered up $6,000 in matching funds to help the Sanctuary stock up on essentials that were severely impacted due to COVID. And YOU MADE IT HAPPEN! Together, we secured all of the matching funds and received just over $12,000 for the animals!! With that, we were able to stock up on much needed medicines; replace our hay tent which was falling apart and becoming hazardous to our hay stock & the animals; and bulk purchase hay & straw bales which we use every single day to feed many of the animals and supply them with warm, comfy beds. Hooray!
✰ As we are based in rural Virginia, power-outs are quite common especially during winter. It is essential we have power, as we must keep our chicken coop and barns warm and ensure our residents have access to unfrozen fresh water. While we have been making do and trying to prepare for power-outs ahead of time by storing large amounts of water in jugs, we took a big step towards ensuring the Sanctuary remains powered with the purchase of a generator! While we still need an electrician to install an interlock to ensure the generator can power our property safely, this is a huge step forward!
✰ We expanded our virtual offerings to include virtual Sanctuary tours, private Q&A sessions with our monthly donors, and, because of this, were able to participate in a variety of Zoom panels and media interviews with partner organizations centering our rescue work. We greatly expanded our reach to new Sanctuary supporters because of this virtual investment! While we have reopened the Sanctuary to public visitors, we still plan on hosting virtual tours via Zoom, especially during the winter months when it is too cold to visit and access to the Sanctuary is limited due to snow.
To Our Supporters & Volunteers:
We want to sincerely thank each and every one of you for your kindness, hard work, and passion for animal liberation and bringing about the end of animal agriculture. We received so many generous donations, animal sponsorships, wishlist gifts, and hands-on support here at the Sanctuary, all of which was essential to our success throughout this year. As we continue on into 2021, we are so grateful for your continued support as we grow and evolve, rescuing more and more animals with each year! A special shout-out must go to our amazing crew of caregiving volunteers without whom the Sanctuary could not have accomplished all that we did this year.
THANK YOU!
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Peaceful Fields Sanctuary 