Many of you know Ela Heyn as a founding member of SOS, a charity that has
done tremendous work to support ferret shelters and has been invaluable
with some of the larger rescues in recent years.
 
Sunday night Ela had a fire at her house.  She was taken to the hospital
with minor burns and minor smoke inhalation.  She will be fine
physically.  (She was treated and released that night.)
 
Regretfully only one of her four ferrets made it, her little girl, Bebe.
An extremely kind animal control officer delivered Bebe to Yvonne DeCarlo
of Fuzztek.  Yvonne gave Bebe a once over, listened to her lungs, and
looked for any evidence of burns.  Thankfully she is fine--acting like a
banshee.  Sadly Theodore, Paddington, and Little Bear did not survive.
 
Ela's apartment was pretty much a total loss.  Between things that
actually burned and massive smoke damage, most of her belongings are
destroyed.  Regretfully she had no insurance.  She is temporarily living
with Matt and Adria Rosette.
 
Ela has done so much for the ferret community.  Now she needs our help in
return.  Many items of furniture and some housewares have already been
arranged for her, but what she needs is cash donations and gift cards
to replace linens and clothing and such, and get together the security
deposit on a new apartment for her and Bebe to live in.  If you would
like to send her a check or a gift card for JC Penney's, Wal-Mart,
K-Mart, Target, Home Depot, Linens-N-Things, or Bed Bath & Beyond, it
would be much appreciated.  You can send them to her at the following
address:
 
Ela Heyn
c/o Matt Rosette
52 Hedden Terrace
North Arlington, NJ 07031-6109
 
Please do not send donations of household goods, clothes, etc. without
contacting me first!  We don't want her to end up with 18 sets of dishes,
and right now she really doesn't have any place to store things.  She
also doesn't need any ferret related items at this time--everything she
needs for the surviving ferret has already been donated or offered.
 
Thanks you for keeping her in your thoughts and prayers at this difficult
time, and thank you in advance for any help you can provide.
 
Anne
[Posted in FML issue 4838]