Wild Places Rescue is an all-volunteer non-profit animal rescue headquartered in northern Alabama. We rescue all types of animals, but currently focus our efforts on donkeys, goats, dogs, cats, and chickens.
Our Expenses
Continuing operating expenses for Wild Places include:- Food stores (hay, grain)
- Barn supplies and wood shavings
- Veterinary supplies and services
- Fuel
- Fundraising expenses, including publications, advertising, internet service, etc.
- Farrier services
- Tools / grooming supplies
- Computer hardware/software
- Legal/accounting services
- Food containers, buckets, scoops, wheelbarrows, picks, hoses, etc.
- monetary donations from individuals, businesses, and foundations
- in-kind donations from the community
- applying for grants
Events
Volunteering for Wild Places
We can ALWAYS use help with:- Feeding animals
- Poop-scooping
- Construction/fencing projects
- Applying for grants
- Planning fundraising events and activities
- Soliciting businesses for in-kind donations
Grants
The work we do is only possible through the generous support of the local community and charitable foundations. Many thanks to the following grant providers for helping us help the animals!- Sam Price Family Foundation
Our Board of Directors
Our Board of Directors holds nominations/elections every two years. All of our Board members do their best to maintain a vegan, cruelty-free lifestyle, and they all have their own set of fur-babies at home. Our current Board members are:Sassy Skelton {coming soon}
Heather Sanner is a Doctor of Optometry, and is the current President of Wild Places. Heather has been an animal rescue enthusiast since 2014. She has mainly rescued dogs and cats from kill shelters with a group of volunteers who transport to no-kill and low-kill rescues. She is happy to help organize fundraisers for Wild Places Rescue and to serve on the board.
Jessica Temple Jessica Temple joined the Wild Places Board in 2019. A poet and professor, she has lived with dogs and cats her whole life. She has also shared a home with goats, horses, guinea pigs, hermit crabs, fish, and a tarantula over the years. Jessica has a love of animals and brings the following experiences to the organization:
- She spent three years as a volunteer, including two as a Clean-and-Feed Coordinator for Good Mews Animal Foundation, a virtually cage-free, no-kill cat shelter in metro Atlanta. The shelter houses approximately 100 residents at a time, and there are over 400 volunteers. She continues to coordinate volunteers for Good Mews' annual gala and silent auction, the organization's largest fundraiser.
- She currently fosters cats and kittens via Forgotten Felines of Huntsville and Battle for Empathy.
- She is active in animal transport through several groups in north Alabama and southern Tennessee, to move animals from kill shelters to no-kill shelters and rescue groups.
- She has been vegan since 2015 and is an active member of the vegan community in Huntsville.
- She has additional experience with literary non-profits, currently serving as Secretary/Treasurer for Alabama State Poetry Society as well as Vice President for Membership for Huntsville Literary Association.
- More than 20 years of experience with horses, including teaching riding lessons, playing polo, exercising horses for friends/acquaintances, caring for rescue horses/mules, caring for polo ponies, and volunteering for a therapeutic riding center.
- More than 5 years of experience caring for goats, and decades of experience caring for dogs.
- Served as Secretary, Treasurer, and finally President of the University of Texas Polo Club while attending the university. This involved a great deal of fundraising, organizational duties, animal care, business management, establishment of policies and procedures, and overseeing other membersÂ’ activities.
- Gained extensive fundraising and management experience while serving as a board member and officer of Wild Places since 2012.
- Received in-depth training from Best Friends Animal Society in Utah on starting a successful animal sanctuary, in 2006.
- Various business, administrative, and customer-relations skills, gained while working as Project Manager and Technical Support Manager for a software company for many years.
- Volunteered with numerous animal welfare organizations and shelters, including the Montrose Animal Protection Agency, the Montrose Animal Shelter, Pikes Peak Animal Rights Team, Austin Pets Alive, Roanoke Animal Shelter, and more.
- Served as a member of the Montrose County Animal Response Team (a network of animal and agricultural resources available for mitigation, planning, mobilization, response, and recovery related to emergency incidents within the county) while living in Montrose.
- A plant-based eater for more than 20 years.
Inspiration for the Name
The Wild Places - by Dan Fogelberg (1951-2007)I was walking alone through the lofty San Juans
With a heart full of light and a head full of songs
I was thinking of time and how much it will cost
To recapture the souls that we surely have lost
In the cities and towns there are millions who dream
But the traffic's so loud that you can't hear them scream
There's a heaven on earth that so few ever find
Though the map's in your soul and the road's in your mind
So many mountains before us, so many rivers to cross
Where is the wisdom to bring back the vision we've lost?
Can we gaze with the wonder of children, into the deafening night?
Has it gotten so dark that we cannot remember the light?
When you sleep on the ground with the stars in your face
You can feel the full length of the beauty and grace
In the Wild Places, man is an unwelcome guest
But it's here that I'm found and it's here I feel blessed
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