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Featured Dec 20, 2014
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Photos by Terry Miller
“WAYKE UP!” CALL FOR WILDLIFE WAYSTATION ANIMAL SANCTUARY AS IT BEGINS 60 DAY CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGN
Los Angeles’ Wildlife WayStation is launching a 60 day Wayke Up crowdfunding web campaign. The WayStation founder-director, Martine Colette, calls this ”the start of a new chapter” in the history of the nationally regarded, non-profit, sanctuary dedicated to the rescue and rehab of wild and exotic wildlife situated in the Angeles National Forest. The WayStation is currently home to 450 animals, cared for by Colette, her staff, and her volunteers. The crowdfunding web campaign will be run via IndieGoGo, between December 14th, 2014 and February 10th, 2015.
Missing these days at the WayStation are the visitors and groups of children visiting from the LA area School Districts as part of the WayStation’s educational programs.
Getting them back is the purpose of the Wayke Up campaign.
Says Wayke Up hostess, actress-singer Nikki Reed (“Twilight”): “The campaign’s purpose is to raise money to renew the WayStation’s Conditional Use Permit (CUP) which has expired. The Permit allows the WayStation to be open for visitors and continue the all-important educational outreach programs that can inspire the next generation of children to protect our wildlife and the environment.
Reed also volunteers at animal shelters and works with the ASPCA.
“Acquiring a conditional use permit is vital to our mission to once again share our home and vision with the world outside of Little Tujunga Canyon,” notes Colette.
She created the Wildlife WayStation—”because there were no existing facilities to take care of wild and exotic animals” – in 1965, the first exotic sanctuary to be established in the U.S. The WayStation was incorporated in 1976 and over the years has provided care and shelter to more than 76,000 animals, birds and reptiles. For many, it has been a lifelong home and many more have been returned, healthy, to a natural habitat, also part of the WayStation’s mission.
“But this growing need results in a growing Waystation budget,” says Colette. “Fundraising becomes a necessity. We are supported solely through donations, bequests and sponsorship—nothing from either State or Government.”
