Kangaloola wildlife shelter fund raising

 “Angel of the Bush”, Glenda Elliott’s, Kangaloola Wildlife Shelter needs our help.

100% of all money raised will be donated directly to the Kangaloola Wildlife Shelter and will be used for the emergency relief and ongoing support of the animals at the Kangaloola Wildlife Shelter.

As with all Australian wildlife shelters they receive no recurrent government funding and rely on public donations. Kangaloola Wildlife Shelter inc. is a registered charity so donations are fully tax deductible.

Kangaloola are dedicated to the rescue, rehabilitation and release of sick, injured and orphans native Australian wildlife. Kangaloola Wildlife Shelter Inc. is a registered charity and has been operating in in the Stanley forest of North East Victoria for nearly 30 years, saving thousands upon thousands of native animals.

Kangaloola Wildlife Shelter will take in injured and debilitated animals - Koalas, kangaroos, wombats, brush tail possums and other animals are fragile.

Kangaloola relies on donations from the public and receives no recurrent funding from the government.

Kangaloolas’ Mission Statement includes “ensuring that the donations we receive are put to their most effective use in the rescue, rehabilitation and release of native Australian wildlife.”

As an introduction - I have

attached an article from ABCabout Glenda Elliott who runs

Kangaloola Wildlife Shelter. 

Meet Yackandandah's angel of the bush: The woman 

saving thousands of native

animals

ABC Science/

By Fiona Pepper

for ‘Off Track’.

Posted Fri 31 Aug 2018

In every room of Glenda Elliott's rambling house, kangaroos are sprawled out on the floor, koalas are in enclosures and wombats are sleeping in old

cots.

They all have names and they'are all much loved.

Step outside, and there are shelters for wallabies, emus, possums and gliders.

For the past 25 years, Glenda, with the help of her husband Ron and a small team of volunteers, has run Kangaloola Wildlife Shelter, an unconventional animal sanctuary that has saved the lives of thousands of native animals.

The not-for-profit shelter sits in the middle of the Stanley Forest just outside Yackandandah, 300 kilometres north-east of Melbourne.

With more than 100 animals to care for, Kangaloola is a hive of activity — animals being fed, food being prepared and yards being cleaned.

While Glenda sits at the helm of this massive operation, she's very much a reluctant hero.

I don't like it when people make you a hero; you're doing something that you want to do — you're not a hero," she says.

But spend a small amount of time with her or speak with any of the Kangaloola volunteers and you quickly realise the woman who wakes at 2:00am each day to feed baby animals is aptly nicknamed "the angel of the bush".

"Glenda is quite remarkable, mentally and physically," Pauline Jones, a Kangaloola volunteer for the past 19 years, says.

"I don't know how she can just go year in, year out — not a day off."

"I said to her one day, I said: 'Glenda, how can you lift that?' She said: 'Just determination — it's got to be done, just got to do it.'"

Glenda explains the majority of the animals currently in her care were "fence hangers" — kangaroos whose legs had been caught in wire fences and then become paralysed.

Then, of course, there is the wildlife that has been hit by cars, chased by dogs, or orphaned joeys whose mothers have been shot by hunters.

Remarkably most of the animals cared for at Kangaloola survive, according to Chris Lehmann, another volunteer.

"The majority of them are orphans and would not have survived if we hadn't intervened," Chris says.

"And they come here and they get a second chance, and most of them get through it."

The survival rates aren't so surprising when you see the level of care offered to the animals, something reflected in the house rules.

"Number one rule is animals are number one. Number 10 is if you're not sure, go back and look at number one," Chris jokes.

While it's an unrelenting, self-funded job for Glenda and her team, she still gets a huge amount of satisfaction from helping animals.

The house that Yack built

At first glance, Kangaloola is a fairly rickety lot of structures and old caravans cobbled together. But when Glenda and her husband first set up Kangaloola 25 years ago, it was just a shed with no walls.

"Every time it rained, everything got wet. And if it was windy you had to rake the leaves off your bed and off your bedroom floor," she recalls.

But a few years ago, the community of Yackandandah rallied together and arrived at Kangaloola armed with second-hand doors and windows to seal off the shed.

"Now we have a house with doors and windows. It's made of everything," she says.

"And I call it 'the house that Yack built', and I love it. It's very convenient, very comfortable compared to what it was."

'I just prefer animals more than people'

Spending even a small amount of time at Kangaloola, you become struck by Glenda's drive and determination to care for animals.

Sitting in a worn-out armchair nursing a joey, she explains that even as a child she rescued sick goats, puppies, and even little swallows.

This is because, Glenda says, she always connected more with animals than people.

"Animals, they just want to live," she says. They appreciate life, they don't have to have everything, they don't judge."

This relationship with animals stemmed from what Glenda describes as "a horrible childhood". From the age of eight she would run away from home.

"I'd spend time in the forest and watch the animals — you'd go into the forest and of course all the animals would be frightened of you and then they'd get used to you," she says.

"And then you'd just watch them playing, just going about their animal lives, and I used to think why can't humans be like that?"

The experience obviously had a profound effect on her.

"I know what it's like to be cold and hurt and hungry and [have] nobody to care and nobody to help you. I know what that's like and I don't want animals to feel that way."

Not one to spend long speaking about feelings and emotions, Glenda reaches for another joey to feed and claims "I'll go till I drop".

Glenda performs heavy physical work around the clock despite obvious back problems, but when asked if she ever feels worn out, she responds: "Yeah, sometimes I feel worn out. I'm all twisted and broken."

"The thing that makes me more depressed, tired and worn than anything is the state of the environment," she says.

"The environment's what's wearing me out, and I try not to think about it — it's in a real mess."

PayPal Giving Fund, is a registered public ancillary fund set up to distribute money to charities. Meaning it goes from GoFundMe / PayPal directly to the authorised Kangaloola PayPal Business account, the same account as the one on their website.. ❤️