Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
J.B. took some amazing photos of Burrito, Foxie and Jody yesterday. Three cheers for summer on Young’s Hill!
Burrito being handsome:
artistic shot of Foxie in the foreground and a blurry Annie sitting on a log in the background:
Foxie with one of her dolls:
Jody grazing:
Our first ever 5K fundraiser was a blast. Big, big thank you to volunteers April Graham and Laura Heggs for organizing the Ellensburg event – you did a terrific job! After expenses, the event raised $5,530 for the sanctuary!
Here are a few photos to prove how much fun it was:
Volunteers Seana (who was also the raffle sponsor), Connie and Emily working on registration under race organizer April’s direction, with our new Director of Development, Michael, looking on:
The start of the great chalk messaging courtesy of volunteer Stephanie:
Board member Jessica (right) and partner Lisa donned tutus in honor of Jamie:
Race organizer April of AlignFit leading a stretching class prior to the start of the run:
the runners approaching the start line:
and they’re off!
About 15 minutes later, the “troll strollers” (walkers) began:
in just 21 minutes, 37 seconds, the first runner, Kurtis, crossed the finish line:
two minutes, eight seconds later, the fastest woman in the race, Keri, crossed the finish:
Event organizer Laura Heggs, running to the finish after clearing up some signs from the course:
One of the glitter-bombed “trollphy” awards:
This is just a small sampling of the photos from the event. Visit the full gallery and purchase your favorites – proceeds from sales go to the chimps!
Thanks to sponsors Gorilla Screen Printing for the discount on the great t-shirts, Zing Bars for delicious post-running nutrition (the coconut chocolate bars are amaZING!) and AlignFit for the stretching class. Individual donors, like Ape Ally Adrienne Armstrong, made a huge difference in the success of the fundraiser. See all sponsors and donors here.
Our volunteers are always top-notch and dove right in to the new event.
And the participants were terrific!
We can’t wait to do it again!
J.B. just finished installing a scale in the greenhouse so that we can monitor the chimps’ weights. He cleverly disguised the scale as a place to sit. Most of the chimps are tucked away in their nests for the night and didn’t even bother getting up when the door to the greenhouse was opened for them, but Foxie and Jamie immediately came out.
Foxie, with two troll dolls, hopped right on it:
Jamie, of course, was mostly interested in seeing if she could take it apart:
It was a beautiful, sunny and still morning in Cle Elum, so we set up breakfast on Young’s Hill as a forage. We added some lettuce to the forage – one of Negra’s favorite foods. She went right out! I think it’s the first time since September, when the hill was first opened, that I’ve seen seven chimpanzees out there at once.
Here’s a short video of Negra enjoying the forage:
Today is Rena Schwartz’s birthday and Melissa Pendleton has sponsored the day in celebration. Sponsoring a day of care for the chimpanzees in a friend’s or loved one’s name is such a thoughtful way to spread the love. Annie, Burrito, Foxie, Jamie, Jody, Missy, Negra, and all of their humans at CSNW wish you the happiest of birthdays, Rena!
Here’s Jamie checking out a gift bag at one of Foxie’s birthday parties:
In celebration of reaching our goal of 5,000 “likes” (fans) on the Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest Facebook page (an increase of over 300 since yesterday!), we threw a Cinco Mil de Mayo party for brunch this morning.
On the menu was guacamole in lettuce with tomatoes and a side of watermelon, accompanied by sparkling seltzer water with lime wedges:
And what’s Cinco de Mayo without a pinata?
Negra loves both avocados and lettuce, so she was very pleased with the party menu:
Missy also really enjoyed the lettuce guacamole wraps. She had a technique of licking the guacamole off first, then eating the lettuce:
Jamie enjoyed the refreshing sparkling water, served in plastic shot glasses:
Burrito‘s strategy was to gather as many pieces of primate chow as quickly as he could:
Annie also enjoyed the chow, though in a slower fashion:
Guess who got the pinata? Yes, indeed – the leader of the group, Jamie, claimed it as her own:
She must have left some nuts inside, though, because Negra was eating a walnut later in the party:
It was a pretty windy day, but Foxie took some time to explore on Young’s Hill with Dora:
Negra decided the party was not complete without fresh grass from the hill, so she went out and helped herself:
For dinner, J.B. served the chimps baked sweet potatoes, corn, and celery. Here he is serving celery to Jody:
Of course, dinner was capped off with the traditional Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest night bag of seeds, popcorn, nuts and dried fruit. Jody lied down to eat hers:
Thanks and happy Cinco de Mayo to everyone who liked the FB page for the first time yesterday and for those friends who recruited new fans of the Cle Elum Seven! Please explore the blog and the rest of the website to learn more about your new friends! And if you’re local, join us on May 20th in Ellensburg for Race for the Apes – our first 5K run / walk fundraiser.
The sanctuary is less than 300 fans away from reaching 5,000 “likes” on our Facebook page, so I thought we should try to reach 5,000 today, and we can throw a Cinco (Mil) de Mayo party for the chimps tomorrow!
It’s an ambitious goal for one day, so we really need everyone’s help to spread the word. Tell all of your friends on Facebook to like the CSNW page, and, even if you’re not on Facebook, send an email out to your friends who are and let them know we want them to like our page today. You can send them a link to the full “chimp cam” video that King 5 previewed yesterday to win them over: http://youtu.be/u4i0HhwWKls.
As a bonus, J.B. is going to be posting a video on the Facebook page that he caught on his phone just now of Negra sneaking onto the hill and getting grass, so if you’re a fan of the Cle Elum Seven and not a fan on Facebook, today is your day to rectify that situation!
Here’s what our Facebook cover currently looks like – Jody peacefully sleeping in the sandbox:
