A charity that cares for homeless, injured or disabled farm animals in South Australia’s Murraylands says it faces closure without thousands of dollars worth of donations.
Key points:
- A charity farm at Rockleigh in SA’s Murraylands faces closure without donations
- Furever Farm’s owner says COVID and other inflation pressures caused donations to dry up
- He says an expensive pig shelter construction drove the charity to “crisis point”
Furever Farm is located at Rockleigh, north of Monarto, and houses 130 animals that it says have nowhere else to go, including cows, donkeys, pigs, chickens, sheep, ducks and more.
After a pig shelter construction which cost more than $30,000, owner Darren Appleby, said the charity was left with no choice but to ask for help with ongoing costs like food and vet bills.
“Being a registered charity we rely alot on donations and fundraising but with COVID we’ve seen the donations slip back quite a lot,” Mr Appleby said.
“Up until recently the amount of fundraising you could do was very limited.”
He said the charity had reached “crisis point” and an online fundraiser was aiming to collect $24,000 in donations.
“We ask you, if you can, to help us survive so we can continue to help the animals survive,” the fundraiser stated.
Mr Appleby said he was not sure what would happen to the animals he cared for if the charity closed.
“That’s the scary bit, for us, it’s the shock of having to close, but then our main concern is what happens then to the animals?” he said.
“What we’re after is just that time, something to get us to a semi-comfortable spot, enough money to pay for the bills we know that are going to come.”
The crowdfunding effort had raised just over $1,200 in about a day.