In regards to just picking a shelter and sending a generalized gift
package, I enthusiastically "second" the notion made in yesterday's
FML where Troy Lynn wrote 
>What about picking a shelter and sending a general gift box, in
>addition to picking fuzzies from the trees? That way if any Santas go
>AWOL, hopefully there will be extra gifts for the forgotten fuzzies
>too. Every year there have been AWOL santas and it breaks my heart.
>Others try to make it up to the fuzzies when we find out, but the
>purpose of the giving trees is not only to get presents to the fuzzies
>BEFORE Christmas but also to show the caretakers that others care
>about the shelter ferrets....

having spent years struggling to meet the needs of a couple of times
upwards of 70 ferrets in the now-closed and "disbanded" Ferret & Dove
Sanctuary, Inc. I can certainly testify to the always on-going needs
of all shelter for each and every ferret in them as well as nearly
perpetual intakes of more who often are brought in with no usable
supplies to speak of. I think a generalized care-package is a marvelous
idea! Bedding, chicken and turkey baby food and ferret supplies of
nearly every sort are perpetually needed all year around by every
shelter worth their salt. This kind of thing would do the most good for
the most needy. In fact tomorrow is the anniversary of the day, that,
over 12 years ago, a tiny elderly ferret was turned over to our hands
who had been the pet of one of the Blue Angels' team (Navy jets) and
she survived diabetic blindness (from having crunched down a whole
bowlful of paper-wrapped mints...do *NOT* let ANY of your fur-charges
have any access to ANY candy!) and terrible internal ulcers from which
she recovered after being treated literally around the clock the first
several, critical days...she lived comfortably for 3 more years and
died quietly at 10 years old. Molly Blue-Angel's story is on this page
(The Ferret & Dove Sanctuary is TOTALLY closed and gone, this is a
memorial-page!)
http://www.angelfire.com/theforce/ferret_rescuer/index.html

[Posted in FML 7215]