happy birthday to saints and we wish for many more!

this is a special year for us...it is SAINTS 10th year anniversery and in that decade, we have done a lot. hundreds upon hundreds of senior and special needs homeless and unwanted animals of all kinds of species have found kindness, compassion, dignity and respect in a tiny corner of the world that finally got it together enough to fully appreciate how much value their lives had to them.

for those who have followed their journeys and our journey with them thru this blog...you know it has never been easy. you know it has had it's moments of beauty and it's moments of holy fuck!
but we are still here with the caring and the guts to keep going on.

sheila tells me there are still 30 tickets available for this years wishes for whiskers gala and i want a full house this year to celebrate not just the incredible spirits of the animals who have come into our care...i also want to celebrate 3650 days of our staff and volunteers sticking with and following thru the unbelievable lightness and the sometimes soul stopping darkness of doing this kind of very special and difficult animal rescue.

10 years! 10 years! for 10 years we have fallen in love and given everything that we have to help these animals find some kind of happiness near their life end while knowing and accepting that each day of those 10 years of loving each and every one of them means 10 years of losing the ones that we love on their final day.

such incredible animals...odie, al, cole...spritely, pops, gideon.... stripe, boo, frodo....marilla, clover and maple...pete, percy, baby jack, aurora, pleeze, rusty...all gone but all still here safe and warm inside our hearts and memories. their lives had meaning to them and to us.

they all lived..they were all loved..and they will never be forgotten by any of us.

and the guys still here and the new broken unwanted ones yet to come...do you know what it means to them to have a safe and caring place to finish their lives? someone was watching over lola, and tia, and miko...someone cared enough about carter and gracie....someone fought for raven and rio and ensured they had a right to continue to live their lives for as long as their lives may be.

saints is not just the animals..it is also the people who work so hard to daily care for them, to raise money to pay the vet bills..it is the people who give so generously so we can meet the animals needs and it is the people in the outside world who break down the barriers to find them a safe and loving place to be.

saints is a life saving, life giving community that goes so very far beyond just me.

the last 10 years have literally been a lifetime for hundreds of animals in real need...the next 10 years stand before us and i am not going to lie...it is daunting in the extreme. but we have made it this far and there is still a long way to go.

if you haven't bought your ticket yet for the gala...please come and join us to not only celebrate this past decade but to help us find the will and the strength to keep going until we reach the day when senior and special needs animals no longer need rescue because everyone discovers how precious they are and no one ever throws them away.