When I was reading one of Dayna's early posts about the abused ferret and
about her gift for healing animals, it sounded to me like she was skipping
meals and making other sacrifices for the sake of her work.  This turns out
to be true.
 
Dayna has always felt that because her work sheltering and healing animals
has been her own choice, it is her own responsibility to fund it.  She
usually has enough to manage, but as more people get to hear about her work,
more little guys come to her.  She admitted (after some persuasion) that
sometimes it is very hard to eat and care for her little charges as well.
Her dream is to have an official shelter someday, including a treatment
facility with vets who will volunteer a few hours a week so that ferret
lovers with little more to give than love are able to get treatment at cost
or less, if needed.  Unfortunately, Dayna lives in CA, where no such public
shelter would be tolerated (yet!).
 
Until Dayna and other ferret-friends can come out into the open, her
underground work is especially important because at least a few fewer
ferrets die needlessly and silently for lack of knowledgeable vets and
because of the fear of fines and worse.  She has friends who donate their
time and skills to help her work, but even so she sometimes has difficulty
supporting herself and her fur kids.
 
Other people on the FML besides me have contacted Dayna, and she says that
at the moment her costs are covered.  This is frequently not the case,
though, and the little guy and others will still need treatment and care.  I
am offering to become the conduit from the FML to Dayna's rescue work, so
that people who wish to can donate without her needing to worry that she
might have given her address to the wrong person and that she will lose her
beloved charges to the authorities.
 
Anyone who wishes to send a donation does not have to worry about what I
will do with it, because you can simply make out a check to Dayna Frazier.
In fact, I'd prefer that to having to deposit funds and keep track of all
this.  I will forward the checks when I receive them, so you could always
ask her a little after you send the check whether I did pass it on as
promised.  I will only post this offer once, out of consideration for the
general desire to keep financial requests to a minimum.
 
If anyone is still interested in an emergency fund, I think I'd be willing
to volunteer to set up a separate bank account (so I don't have to do much
accounting) and keep track of the funds.  I do *not* volunteer to fill out a
501-C to establish a non-profit status, however.  That is harder than you'd
expect, as someone here already pointed out.  I would want two other
volunteers to review the requests with me so we could be fair and avoid
mistakes.
 
Judith White, 1236 Belfield Avenue, Drexel Hill, PA 19026-4211   (610)
446-8036
[Posted in FML issue 1576]