The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust USA

My name is Reideen. I am 5 years old. I live in California. I like African elephants because they are cute and smart. I read a book about an elephant named Star and I want to help African elephants*. I want to make a bake sale and raise money for them. It’s African elephant teatime! Money will be used to help baby elephants. Maybe I will make elephant cookies for the bake sale. Thank you for your elephant support!!!

~ Reideen (June 27, 2024)

* Note: Star is actually an Asian elephant.

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Hi, friends and family. My name is Hydie. I'm here to support my daughter Reideen, a kindergartener and homeschooler from Southern California, on her campaign to help African elephants.

What motivated Reideen to launch this campaign?

Reideen is an animal lover and she loves to read. She recently borrowed a book titled Surviving the Wild: Star the Elephant by Remi Lai from the local library. The story talks about challenges faced by elephants and introduces children to elephant rescue work. She was so touched by the story that she expressed an immediate interest to organize a bake sale to raise money for rescuing African elephants. She wants to help rescuing wild elephants in Africa, especially orphaned baby elephant calves. I am helping her here to set up this website to spread the words. Feel free to follow our updates on her bake sale efforts. Thank you for your support!

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Why are African Elephants important?

African elephants are important because they help maintaining suitable habitats for other species. Being the largest land animal, they help to spread seeds and create clearings and paths in the woodlands for animals and new plants to grow. Their dung can be used as fertilizer, fuel, coffee brew, pest control, and medicine. They also help to attract tourists to sustain local economy.

Why are they endangered?

African elephants' population has significantly decreased from 10 million in 1930 to only 415,000 as of 2018 (according to WWF). They are endangered because of the following reasons: (1) increasing human-wildlife conflict due to urban development and deforestation, (2) ivory poaching, (3) bushmeat poaching, (4) and climate change (drought, bushfire, floods, etc.).

Who are we raising money for and how does this organization support elephant rescue?

We are raising money to benefit The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust USA, who provides financial and technical support to the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (SWT) in Kenya. SWT operates several wildlife conservation initiatives, including rescuing, rehabilitating and re-introducing into the wild, orphaned elephants and rhinos.

Your generous donation will help to support SWT's projects directly, including orphans' project, aerial surveillance, anti-poaching, canine unit, community outreach, saving habitats, eco lodges, veterinary unit, and water for wildlife.

Here is a video of their work:

SWT Elephant Orphanage:

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Recommended reads and videos:

1. The Status of African Elephants (WWF)

2. Surviving the Wild: Star the Elephant (Remi Lai)

3. Secrets of the Elephants (National Geographic)

Hello, I am Chitra Tatachar, Sr. Software Engineer in Silicon Valley, CA. 

I love elephants, the most remarkable inhabitants of our planet, for their compassion, grace, intelligence, resilience and more. I think it is our responsibility as co-inhabitants of this planet, to help these amazing creatures and reverse the harm our species has done to them. 

I'm raising money to benefit The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust USA, a 4 out 4 star charity doing amazing work to help endangered wildlife by conserving their habitat; anti-poaching efforts; providing water; food and shelter; and... rescuing, hand-raising and rehabilitating orphaned baby elephants find their home back in the wild. To this day they have rescued and successfully raised 262 orphans with 37 babies born to wild living orphan elephants!

But, raising baby elephants is no small task and they need all the help they can get! Just a day's formula milk for a nursery elephant costs $48! A day’s milk for the Nursery Herd costs $630! Find out more on what it takes to raise these these babies. 

Any donation will DIRECTLY go to the charity through the GoFundMe website, to help make an impact. Thanks in advance for your contribution to this wonderful and worthy cause!

Elephant Orphans Project of Sheldrick Wildlife Trust USA

You will feel the joy of helping out these wonderful babies to make a difference in their lives and watch them grow and have wild-born babies of their own! 

IMPORTANT NOTE:

If you have donated here, please don't forget to share your receipt on your company's donation portal and almost all companies can match your donation thus doubling your impact. Yes, of course they're tax deductible too. Thank you! 

If I haven't convinced you yet... WAIT!! That's not all... as a way of personally thanking you for supporting this amazing cause, I am offering three FREE hi-resolution digital downloads of these photos below, that I have taken in the beautiful Point Reyes National Seashore in the San Francisco Bay area to inspire you to Meditate, Reflect and Retreat! They can make 20X16 prints, the value of which would be at least $60. I will offer these via the Thank you feature in GoFundMe. Please share your email when I send you a thank you note after your donation (only visible to me), so I can send you the photos to download (Photos are copyrighted by me and for personal/project use and not for resale). If you are a designer or have a design firm you may also use them as you would any Royalty-free photos in your projects. I can also customize these photos to remove the titles (Meditate, Reflect, Retreat) and just have them as photos if you prefer. 

Rest assured, GoFundMe campaign funds directly go to Sheldrick Wildlife Trust to helping these orphaned babies. 

This would make a great gift for the Holidays, New Year and beyond! 

Wishing you and your family Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Happy and Healthy New Year 2021!

Here are the low-resolution thumbnails of them for your purview (also without title ver. if you prefer). 

Meditate: 



Reflect:



Retreat:



 Watch these amazing videos on what it takes to rescue these unfortunate baby elephants...

and how we can help turn around their lives...

 

More information about Sheldrick Wildlife Trust USA: The mission of the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust USA is to provide financial and technical support to the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Kenya. SWT, which is located in Kenya, operates several wildlife conservation initiatives, including rescuing, rehabilitating and re-introducing into the wild, orphaned elephants and rhinos. 

For over 40 years, The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust embraces all measures that compliment the conservation, preservation and protection of wildlife. These include hand-raising infant orphaned elephants and rhinos who have lost their families, anti-poaching operations and aerial surveillance efforts to safeguard the reserve in which wildlife calls home, providing veterinary assistance to animals in need, and providing educational and community awareness opportunities to educate the existing and upcoming generations about wildlife sustainability and conservation.
 

Friends, for my birthday I have set a goal to fundraise for a very important group in Africa - The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. As many of you know, I am passionate about all animals and the protection of wildlife. I have made a personal commitment to myself to step up my own contributions (time, money and awareness building) to this cause and do what I can. I am hoping to raise $1,000  from now until my birthday on June 8th. I will match your generous contributions with a $1,000 contribution of my own. Join me in doing something great for this planet. And help me spend my money! 

A little bit about David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and why I chose them for this effort:
- Founded in 1977, this organization has a long history of support for the endangered elephant and black rhino species
- They fund and operate mobile de-snaring and anti-poaching units. 
- They operate an impressive mobile veterinary unit designed for rapid and effective response when animals of various types are injured, etc.
- Their orphan project takes in baby elephants, whose mothers have been killed, raising them to be re-released into the wild.

Warmly, 
Julie Fornaro