Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

2nd anniversary fundraising

Jamie Chimpanzee the Firefighter

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You probably know that Jamie is a pretty awesome chimpanzee. What you may not know is how, last year, she alerted the humans to a fire that was approaching the sanctuary property. You can read about that here.

It’s fire season again here in the Northwest, and the Jolly Mountain Fire is currently burning in some forested back-country about twelve miles from the sanctuary (the sanctuary is not in danger).

That means that there are many firefighters and disaster responders in the area working hard. For the last ten days, Southwest Incident Management Team #3 was in charge of the all the many things that are part of responding to wildland fires, from community outreach to physical fire containment measures.

Alan Sinclair was leading that team and heard the story of Jamie alerting us to the fire last year. He contacted us and brought out a group of firefighters and Forest Service workers to learn more about the story and to assess the firewise measures and fire preparedness at the sanctuary.

Then, they decided to do something amazing.

They made Jamie an honorary wildland firefighter! They created and gave her a certificate:

 

certificate for Jamie

 

a photo collage:

photo collage

 

AND an official pair of wildland firefighter boots (thanks for the boots, Sharma!)!!!

 

Michael Thompson (who, incidentally, won over Negra big time) put together this video to tell the story:

 

 

We are all so touched that the crew chose to recognize Jamie in this way. I was thinking about how fitting this really is for Jamie to have this honor. I don’t think I have to explain how much firefighters mean to us after our experience with the Taylor Bridge Fire. That first hand experience has made us much more aware of the work that they do all over the world.

Firefighters and first responders of all kinds risk their lives to protect others. They are the ones who go towards danger rather than running away from it.

For whatever reason, this is what Jamie does too (just check out this video of her capturing a snake last week). Jamie is not the most affectionate or nurturing chimpanzee of the group of seven at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, but she is a protector, and her chimpanzee and human family are lucky to have someone so brave among us.

 

Thank you, Jamie, and a big thank you to all firefighters out there! Please share this post and/or the video as a thank you to those who go towards danger to protect others around them.

 

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Great Apes Giving Day – one week away!

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STD-Chimpanzee-Sanctuary-NorthWest

We could really use the help of you devoted blog readers to reach our goal of raising $5,000 for the first ever Great Apes Giving Day on October 14th.

This 24-hour online event, sponsored by the Arcus Foundation, the Greenbaum Foundation and our friends at the the Anti-American Vivisection Society, is aimed at raising awareness and funds for several North American sanctuaries caring for great apes. It’s a pretty cool idea, and we are happy to be participating!

With the friendly competition among the sanctuaries, we are a little nervous because we are one of the smallest and the newest sanctuary participating in the day, but it’s true that our loyal supporters have the biggest hearts!

There are three main ways that you can participate:

  • Make a donation. Your donation today or any day before the 14th will be counted toward our total on giving day. Or you can wait to make your donation on the 14th, which will increase our chances of winning cash prizes (golden tickets) given out each hour. Learn all about prizes and the rules for the day here. If you’d like to make a matching challenge donation to make things more exciting, let us know in the comments below, or email [email protected]. A donation of $100 pays for a month of blog posts – that’s a pretty good deal when you think about 30 days worth of videos and photos and stories of your chimpanzee family, isn’t it? Imagine if every blog reader donated $100!
  • Create your own fundraising page and fundraise for the sanctuary! It’s pretty easy to set up a page (take a look at these tips to get started), and we would be happy to help by answering questions, providing photos, and whatever else you need. Create your page today and start letting your potentials donors know about it!
  • Share the CSNW fundraising page and encourage others to donate. Spread the word via email and social media so more people know about the day and Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest’s participation in this online fundraising event!

Mark your calendars now for October 14th and check our page that day to see how close we are to our goal of raising $5,000!

Thank you, as always, for your support and dedication to Foxie, Annie, Jody, Missy, Jamie, Burrito, and Negra!

annie missy play wrestle

And the winner is….

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Our grand total raised for our 2nd Anniversary Fundraising was

$52,561 !!

This surpassed our ultimate goal by $7561 and that means we will be installing FOUR more picture windows – the three originally planned between the playroom and the outdoor area and one more from the playroom overlooking the garden.

Big, big thank yous go to every single person who donated to the sanctuary between March 17th and June 13th. We had about 500 donations during the fundraising drive and every donation helped us surpass our goal!

Special thanks to Karen and Don Young for the $7,500 in matching donations and the Hugh and Jane Ferguson Foundation and Tony Stewart Foundation for their $5,000 grants.

And (drumroll, please…)

Congrats and thanks to:

1) Tamela, who raised $2,391 (and counting!) through her T-Arts Etsy store full of one-of-a-kind jewelry and other wonderful hand-crafted ape pieces.

2) Felicity Wood, who raised $1,465 through her friends and family (and herself) by asking them to give to the sanctuary for her birthday

3) Leslie Sodaro, who donated $1,200 during the three months of the fundraising, giving generously on top of her regular monthly donations

Anonymous Sponsor-a-Day

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An anonymous generous donor has sponsored this day, June 4th 2010. Their donation helped us exceed our ultimate goal with our 2nd Anniversary Fundraising and inspired us to go for a fourth window!

Thank you to this anonymous donor, to  everyone who has helped with this fundraising effort and to everyone who has sponsored days of sanctuary throughout the year.

Just nine more days to go until the second anniversary of the chimpanzees’ arrival to sanctuary!

Ultimate goal reached! $1,800 to reach $50,000

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We’ve reached the $45,000 goal!!! We will replace one more window if we reach $50,000 – only $1,800 more to get there. That will allow us to replace a grand total of seven windows – one for each chimpanzee! Two windows from LUSH Fresh Handmade Cosmetics, One from Anna Kircher’s generous match and you blog readers, and hopefully four from the 2nd Anniversary Fundraising.

The remaining windows we will keep as they are so that we can open them for air circulation. We are waiting for our welders to fit us in to their schedule. As soon as that happens, we’ll start installing the first three picture windows!

The idea behind our 2nd Anniversary Fundraising was to raise crucial funds for our operating expenses before doing any more projects, so any additional funds raised will go towards these operating expenses. Let’s see how far we can go!

A big thank you to recent donors who helped put us over the top:

*Karen and Don Young for their amazing $7500 match. They really allowed us to reach that goal so much faster!

* Frank Milette of Magnetic & Penetrant Services Co., Inc. Frank is volunteer Cari Parker’s boss. Remember that big roll of pink paper? Cari saw the paper at work, thought of Jamie, and asked her boss if she could bring it to the sanctuary. As a thank you for letting her give the chimps the paper, Cari shared a photo of Jamie in her giant pink nest and a link to our website, and Frank immediately wrote a very generous $1,000 check!

*Barbara Bakeletz (Barb in Ohio) who donated $875 to get us to the $40,000 goal.

* Volunteer Stephanie Perciful, who raised $700 through the Pet First Aid Class she and her husband Tim taught last week. Thanks to all who attended the training and donated!

* Tamela Burgess has been “feeding the banana” for months by working really hard to produce amazing and sought-after jewelry for her Etsy store. Her total raised so far is over $1,500!

*A special thanks also to our monthly donors, who keep us going whether we are having a special fundraising drive or not.

*I don’t want to leave anyone out! There have been so many donors over the last two months, and I will be updating our donor list soon to reflect all of these wonderful folks. Everyone who has given any amount since March 17th has contributed towards the 2nd Anniversary Fundraising. Our success is thanks to all of you.

Pet First Aid this Sunday – sign up today!

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There’s still time to sign up for Tim and CSNW volunteer Stephanie Perciful’s Pet First Aid Class being held near Auburn on Sunday, May 23rd (corrected) from 9am to 3pm.

Check out the pdf flyer and contact Tim: [email protected] for more information and to register.

This is an absolutely invaluable class for anyone who cares for companion animals, and 100% of the proceeds of the bargain registration cost of $50 will go to the sanctuary toward our 2nd Anniversary Fundraising.

Tim is a certified instructor through the American Safety and Health Institute and will teach a range of emergency and first aid procedures for dogs and cats with hands-on demonstrations and instruction.

We know you love your companion animals and want to be able to provide them with the best care. Now you can do this and help your chimpanzee friends too.

Register today and share this information with everyone you know in the Seattle area who has a dog or cat family member, and ask them to pass it on!

Windows

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Wondering what windows we will replace if we reach our ultimate fundraising goal? Thanks to LUSH and generous blog readers, we have the funds to replace three windows. We want to replace six total.

Here is the “garden-side” of the playroom. On this side, we would replace two on top and one on the bottom.

wall of windows

This will allow Negra to have a much clearer view. Wondering what the view looks like? See below. There’s actually a lot going on out there between the horses and cattle in the pasture, the road,  and the train occasionally going by:

And here is the outdoor area side of the playroom, upstairs. Right now, these three windows have caging plus a glass window and then plexiglass on the other side of the glass window, which obscures a lot of light and makes it very difficult to see through. Replacing these with chimp-proof glass would let a lot more light into the playroom and would allow chimpanzees or caregivers in the playroom to interact with chimpanzees who are in the outdoor area. It would be really cool, in other words.

In case you need any more convincing, here’s what a window looks like with the caging:

and here’s what it looks like without:

We can do this! Keep checking the fundraising progress and thanks so much for everyone who is working hard to help us reach the ultimate goal!