Remote Animal Assistance founder Jess Leeming is excited for a new chapter of animal welfare after a cry for help on social media touched the hearts of generous donors. Photo: Supplied.
“Like mopping the floor while the roof is still leaking.”
That is how Remote Animal Assistance founder Jess Leeming described the exhausting reality of animal rescue and rehoming as she took to Facebook with a heartfelt letter asking the community for help late last month.
In the letter, Ms Leeming stated that putting all their efforts and resources towards rescue and rehoming with nothing left to address the root cause was futile, and called on supporters in an effort to fundraise for a new development officer and consultant to properly strategise.
“I was spinning my wheels on the rescue side of things, and no matter how many times I tried to redirect my focus internally, and chip away at solving the problem, it just never seemed possible,” she told Cape York Weekly.
“It always seemed to be the latest emergency case, or a new injury or illness that would pop up, or a litter of puppies, and it just felt like no matter how hard I tried, we just never had the resources to really focus on solving the root cause of the issue.
“It’s just not sustainable for me to dedicate every spare second of my life to rescue and rehoming without us making an actual difference as well.”
Just six days later, she took to Facebook again with the great news that an anonymous sponsor had come forward to fully fund the $25,000 consultancy, and they were just $2,500 away from funding the $16,000 development officer campaign.
Ms Leeming said as a busy mum with a full-time job, the two additional roles would allow her to step back a little and not be the only driving force in their efforts to address the animal welfare crisis.
“I think it’s really going to be a game-changer for our efforts,” she said.
“I’ve certainly not dipped my toe in the waters of politics or advocacy or anything like that, so I’m excited to learn from this consultant and work with him to make a really clear, strategic plan of how we want to achieve our goals.
“We need to form the networks to let people know what we do, and get government and other organisations on board to really support our cause, rather than simply relying on supporters for donations all the time.”
Although getting the funding for a new development co-ordinator, along with a donation from a deceased estate that is funding the rescue operations manager position, was a huge win, Ms Leeming said it was only for an initial three months, and the goal was now to make the positions ongoing.
“Obviously, we’re not going to solve all the problems in three months, so we do still need to come up with a way to maintain the two positions of the rescue manager and the development officer,” she said.
“As much as it does seem like a great win, and it is, I’m so happy and grateful that we were able to achieve our initial funding goals, we can’t stop, we need to now make the roles sustainable.
“We’d love to hear from councils or any other organisations who’d like to work with us to develop programs addressing the complex issues surrounding stray animal populations in remote communities, and finally start fixing that leaking roof.”
