08/30/2026
I have ways you can help linked at the bottom of this post! If you would like to help us make a difference, please don’t hesitate. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask. I will answer any and all questions regarding the current circumstances!
💔😔💔I have been putting off this announcement for over a month now as it has left me completely heart broken. Please, if you care about the animals, read this post until the end, no matter how lengthy it may be. As many of you may know, we have been struggling to keep our doors open for quite a while now. However, we were skating by and making do. We have been consistently handing out 1000+ pounds of animal food a month to citizens of the community and caring for up to 20 animals at a time, occasionally even surpassing our capacity to help more with all the shelters being full and fosters being at an all time low. We have sacrificed our lives, our home, our time and our finances to continue making a difference in the lives of countless animals in need. With the help of our few donors, we have saved over 300 dogs/cats that would have otherwise succumbed to their illnesses/injuries/environments. We have asked for nothing in return for this because it is simply our passion and we enjoy helping in every way that we can.
That is why it is with a heavy heart that I announce our closure. I do ask that you continue to read this post until the end to see how we are planning to continue making a difference in our community and how you can help us with reopening. The reason for our closure is what upsets me the most. One year ago we were met with an Animal Welfare Officer that was tasked with investigating the legitimacy of our license after a “concerned resident” called it into question. We cooperated with grace and gave them access to everything here on the property including our legal state documents/licenses, the animals, kennel room and veterinary records. They completed their investigation satisfied with the treatment of the animals, conditions of the holding areas and overall well being of the animals in our care, as we knew they would! However, we did learn that we were holding the wrong license needed to operate as an Animal Rescue facility in the state of Illinois and to get the one we needed, we needed to be located outside of city limits and complete a handful of time consuming renovations. With that information, we spoke to the State’s Animal Welfare Officer about his suggestions on correcting this mistake. As suggested by him, I attended the City Council meeting in Bridgeport Illinois that month and explained the situation, asking for permission to continue our work within city limits while we worked on the renovations necessary to be state compliant and remain open. They were impressed with the amount of good we had done for the animals and the community and granted us permission to continue doing what we were doing while working towards getting everything lined out to hold the necessary license and be fully state compliant.
I want to make it incredibly clear that when we began rescuing animals, there was no one there to hand us a rule book or tell us the “correct” way to do anything. We assumed that what we were doing was correct as we were just trying to make a difference in the lives of animals in our community. During the period of time that we were trying to finish the renovations needed for our license, we put a hold on bringing in anymore intakes and pushed harder to get our current residents adopted so that it would be easier to renovate their quarters. We also got in contact with a few other agencies in the area including our local animal control officer (previous and current) and started working hand in hand with them to get animals transported to other rescues/shelters.
With all of that being said and you all knowing the history of it now, I will tell you the reason for our sudden closure. There is a certain individual that has made it a point of causing problems for many of us in the animal rescue field right now. They blame us for them getting caught doing some horrendous things to defenseless animals. I am not going to blast their name on here because I refuse to get caught up in all of the pointless, petty drama. It is no coincidence that the second complaint came shortly after that specific individual contacted us to “help” transport animals. We did not take such help from them due to their precarious situation regarding accusations of mistreatment to animals at the time. Two weeks later, we get a knock at the door from the Animal Welfare Officer whom was then forced to shut us down as we had not fully finished the renovations needed within the short amount of time we had before getting the second complaint regarding our license. We were at an all time low for donations over the past year. We were using every penny we could spare to personally try and fund the necessary changes, it was just not enough. We were then helplessly forced to send the current residents to any shelter with openings, through the State’s Animal Welfare Officer. Those shelters included kill-shelters. The complainant stated “They (us) are refusing help from the animal control officer in transporting the current animals”. We know that to be a lie as we are in constant contact with the current Animal Control Officer and have worked hand in hand with her to transport animals.
What a sad world we live in that someone can make one phone call out of pettiness and shut down an organization that has been saving animals and feeding the communities personal pets with our pet food program for nearly 7 years. One phone call, ended it all. One phone call sent more than half of our current residents to kill-shelters. One phone call signed their death certificates after we spent 1,000s of dollars, years of our time and countless sleepless nights saving their lives. I am crushed. I have not been online, posting or even replying to anyone in over a month. This whole ordeal has made me physically sick.
I do want to say one thing. We are not giving up. We will not back down. We are going to keep the pet food program open and running. We are looking into other options that will help make a difference in the lives of animals in our community. Any and all suggestions are greatly appreciated. As of right now, we are working towards renovating a small building to use as a cat sanctuary. And this time, we are making sure we do things right so nobody can ever end it all with one phone call ever again. We will not fail these poor animals ever again. I did not think it was possible for someone to harbor that much hate in their body that they would do something so heinous and destroy the lives of so many innocent animals, but I was wrong. Someone can paint themselves out to be a voice for the animals, a fighter for their rights, but still be the absolute opposite behind closed doors. It’s sad, really.
We still hold our 501c3 to be able to run the pet food program and accept donations to our nonprofit efforts. We are planning to do the Cat Sanctuary first as it is going to be easier to reach money wise and is in such high demand regarding cats needing placement! We would like to get it going as soon as physically possible. The goal cost below is for the renovations itself and do not include the license cost which is $350 on top of the renovations themselves.)
MONEY NEEDED TO FINISH CAT HOUSE RENOVATIONS: $250-$350
Cashapp: $Cassiekay921
Venmo:
Paypal:
Coming up in the next few years:
1. Canine Rescue ($12,000-$15,000)
2. Veterinary Expense Help for the Community
(This will be a rolling fund to help county residents with veterinary expenses for their beloved fur babies. There is no true “goal” as it will always be getting depleted and added on to.)
