Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Merry Almost Christmas !!! December 24, 2014





Help GGP's Christmas Wish come true .....    www.RikkisRefuge.org/FeedMe   your end of year tax deductible donations will make it possible for Rikki's Refuge to continue caring for 1300 animals of 22 species each and every day in 2015 !!!!    Thank you, for your love and generosity !!



There’s a miniature shelter challenge going on now thru January 18th ....  will you vote for Rikki’s Refuge everyday?   Your votes make it possible for us to win contests.  Winning contests make that shoestring not quite snap as we stretch it as far as we can for all the animals’ needs every day !!! 

YOUR Voting really makes a difference !!
click on Rikki’s kitty in the sleigh and cast your vote NOW !!!!    Thank you



We were so lucky to have Santa come to Re-Tail, our wonderful thrift store in Fredericksburg, and listen to what we all want for Christmas.  Thank you Santa !!!  And thank you Santa’s elves who snapped photos, printed pictures and had a great time.  Just like all of us at Rikki’s ....  our Santa doesn’t discriminate ...  he’s happy to bring Christmas Joy to anyone of any species or age .........

.... one day we all piled in the goat cart to go to Fredericksburg and visit Santa at Re-Tail.   Me and GGP and Timmy and Sylvestra .....   everybody wanted to go ... but Sammy the goat said that was enough .... he couldn’t pull no more of us !!!

GGP’s first stop at Re-Tail was to admire the Angel Tree.

Re-Tail is located at 3503 Lafayette Blvd, Fredericksburg, VA 22408, a fabulous place to shop, and to DONATE your gently used items AND instead of getting caught re-gifting your Christmas Pressies ....   how about donating them so we can sell them and buy nums for all the animals of Rikki’s !!!    If you haven’t stopped in to shop .... you need to check it out ....   this is a beautiful, big, well laid out, clean and bright store ... you’ll think you’re in a lovely boutique, a BIG boutique, over 8,000 square feet of household things, furniture, art, books, nic naks, collectables, clothes and MORE ....  Thanks to our wonderful volunteers and staff, everything is clean and nice and neat ....  most things you’ll never even know had a home before you !!!!    And we now have Gift Certificates !!!! 

Angel Trees are a wonderful thing that merchants, our volunteers and our donors all work together on to help the animals.  Our volunteers put a tree up in stores around the area, decorate them with ornaments of the animals, and donors can buy items to put under the tree for Rikki’s Refuge !!!   It takes a lot of work .... and it’s a fabulous Christmas project to make Christmas even better at Rikki’s Refuge.   Thank you ALL who help to make this project a bigger and bigger success each and every year !!!   I LOVE YOU ALL !!!!


GGP got to see Santa first  ... did you listen to what he wants more than anything in the whole wide world?  To make sure that ME and all my friends have enough to eat.  Isn’t he wonderful?  I love my GGP whole lots.  He’s really nice to me and I really like it when he’s here living with me.  I miss him so much when he goes home to his house in Florida ....  but I guess that nice sun shine is nicer than our winter snow !!!

Timmy wented next .... I was busy loving everybody in the store ... I just love to go from one shoulder to the next getting hugged and rubbed and I purr and purr.

Little Timmy wished that all the kitties and other animals who came to Rikki’s hurt or sick, like he did when he was a baby, would always have everything they need to live full and happy lives.  Somebody to love them, even if they are differently abled.  To provide the extra medical care they need, to help them do their physical therapy to keep their damaged limbs in as good working order as possible. 

Timmy has been with us for three years.  Before coming here he fell out the window of a moving vehicle and was horribly hurt.  He was only a few weeks old.  To this day, he needs a lot of comfort and soothing sounds to quell his fear of riding in a vehicle.  For so long he was so scared that he’d freak out and hide when new people came to visit him.  Now he’s learning that he’ll always be safe at Rikki’s and he’s working at the Life Center greeting folks and he’s be one of the animals reading to the little hooman kids in our Kitty-Litter-Ature program ....  and then when the older kidz come, they read to him !!!

Sylvestra was next and oh my, what she asked for.  Santa, can you help to tell kind people to please support Rikki’s Refuge so more of us who once sat on Death Row in a scary kill shelter can get out alive and come to Rikki’s?  You see, I was in one.  Nobody wanted me cuz of my birth defects.  When Opie saw a picture of me he said WOW she and I have a lot in common, and soon I was on the way to live with him.  But with out Rikki’s .... well .... I don’t want to start crying ... so I’m just going to say ... I wouldn’t be here to sit on your lap Santa.  I think I saw Santa wipe a tear from his eye as he hugged Sylvestra and promised to do his best and he said he hoped that the day would come soon that there were no kill shelters and that places like Rikki’s were better funded so that could be possible.

Finally it was my turn.  This Santa guy, he’s one big dude, ya know.  I’m really lookin up to him !!!  What a fabulous job he has.  To travel around the world and make people happy!!  That’s all I want to do.  To bring happiness to everyone.

YOU and your family and everybody out there.  I want to see YOU smile and to know that you have that happy good feeling in your heart cuz you are helping to make a difference in the world. 

And I told Santa not to believe a single word that mom said .....  this whole diet thing is just totally bogus ...  I’m not fat ... come on dude ... let’s compare notes here, huh? ....  With you it’s all the red plush, with me it’s all the orange fluff ....  really !!!  It is ... there isn’t an ounce of fat on me.   So bag mom’s idea of an exercise machine for me for Christmas ....  just listen to me .... fancy feast ...  Fancy Feast ...  FANCY FEAST ...  that’s ALL I want .... 

Pleazzzzz dude .......   Pleazzzzzzzz

I was so excited when Santa said he had an early gift for me ......  my mouth was watering .....  but ... but .... look what he gave me?    I just don’t think this is right ......   

I sure hope YOU’ll give me some Fancy Feast ....  gosh I do .....   www.RikkisRefuge.org/FeedMe
I don’t want to waste away from starvation before next Christmas ......

Here’s some other folks we met at Re-Tail visiting Santa !!!
Come One ... Come All ... as many as YOU can fit in the picture is welcome !!!




This beautiful bride stopped in to look for a wedding dress ..... and she found this beautiful one she’s trying on the photo .... and she stopped to tell Santa she wanted a Happy Ever After Marriage ....  All of us at Rikki’s Refuge wish love and joy for ever and ever!!  Congratulations on your marriage ....  and thank you for shopping at Re-Tail for your very special day !! 






Join The Three Wise Hoomans of Rikki’s Refuge
they’ve banded together to make GGP’s wish come true !!! 
For 24 hours, they will DOUBLE YOUR DONATIONS
from 7 pm, Rikki’s Time (eastern usa) Christmas Eve 12/24 till 7 pm Christmas Day 12/25
all donations ACTUALLY IN HAND or PAYPAL shall be wisely DOUBLED !!!

How you can join in, make GGP’s wish come true and DOUBLE YOUR DONATION
1) www.RikkisRefuge.org/FeedMe
2) PAYPAL to mail@rikkisrefuge.org
3) check or cash, DROP OFF IN PERSON CHRISTMAS DAY
Come to our Christmas Reception at our Life Center on 12/25/14 between 2-4 PM
21410 Constitution Hwy, Rapidan VA 22733, the gate is at the corner of rt 20 and Quarterhorse Ln
4) CREDIT CARD BY EMAIL (name, billing address, number, exp, security number & amount) to Vincent@RikkisRefuge.org  (you may email us earlier by this method and I promise to wait to run your card until the fundraiser opens!)

Thank you for making this the BEST Christmas ever for my GGP !!!
And thank you for helping Rikki's Refuge!
And all 1300 of us who call Rikki’s HOME !!
Love, Opie and Duke




CHRISTMAS DAY TOUR
You MUST have a ticket to get thru the gate at Tour Time. 
From 2-4 pm there will be a reception at the Life Center and everyone is welcome who wishes to bring a donation to be doubled, or who’d like to bring some food or cleaning supplies and stop in and say hi.

Are YOU one of the hoomans who got tickets for the Christmas Day Tour ?  I hope so ... so many of you are coming ....  those tickets sold out quick.  I’m real sorry we can’t just open the gates and everybody can come ....  It’s all about the hooman facilities that we have available ... so many potties ... so many people and all that.  Kind of like how many animals can live here ....  we gotz to have the room and nuf beds and nuf potties and nuf people to sanitize every thing for our protection every day .... rules rules rules .....

If you’re coming .... please please be sure to weare GOOD WATERPROOF HIGH BOOTS .... it’s been raining cats and dogs ..... just kidding .... but it’s been raining lots of water ....  and things are really mushy.  And it gets even mushier when you’re around animals that weight a thousand pounds -- no kidding -- and they are mushing up the ground and churning up the mud ....  so you absolutely need good boots !!!!

You can bring nums to leave for the animals to be fed at their regular feeding time -- we appreciate that very much.  We have to limit feeding them during tours right now, cuz some of the big guys are starting to think of visitors as things to force the food out of .... and when a bunch of cows that weight as much as an suv crowd you and try to remove food from pockets and all ... well it can get kind of dangerous for little bitty hoomans .... even a full sized hooman is itty bitty next to a full grown cow or horse or pig. 

And it’s emu mating season.  This is the only time of year they get a little testy ....  Jack sometimes mistakes hoomans for emus and may take a shining to you, or may consider you a rival .....  and you don’t have what it takes to argue with Jack ....  so we’ll be visiting them from outside the fence tomorrow !!!!

NEW YEARS DAY HIKE
We still have room for you .....  write me at Vincent@RikkisRefuge.org for your reservation package.  You must have a ticket to get thru the gate. 






JOIN US SUNDAY NIGHT
We’re reading Anatomy of the Spirit by Caroline Myss and will be discussing the First Chakra.  Join us for lively conversation, meditation and nums !!!    Opie, Timmy, Sylvestra, Riley and Yetti participate in the classes ........  so if youz got allergies to catz ....   I sorry but they are integral  members of classes at the Life Center !!




THANK YOU FOR HELPING ME TO
SAVE SO MANY LIVES
... with your support we’ve been able to save so many animals ... it’s only with your continued support that we can continue to care for them each and every day ....  Thank you for your kind and generous support for food, medicine, doctors, cleaning supplies ... and love !!

Without YOU

none of us would be here

celebrating Christmas this year !!
THANK YOU !!!!!!
Your donations saved every one of us and will keep us all alive the rest of this year and into 2015 .... we pray.  Please HELP US as we stock our pantries for another winter at Rikki’s Refuge  !!!!   Take the Opie Pledge and promise to work each and every day to make the planet just a little bit better.  If the pictures of the animals you have saved in this issue have made you smile, please take a few moments to make a donation so we can keep them smiling!!!  www.RikkisRefuge.org/FeedMe 

Love,
    Opie


PS I want you to know something very important.  We always spend your funds very wisely and frugally.  We buy the basic necessities, we buy generic in bulk, volunteers drive many miles, donating the cost of gas, to get the best deals, we use day old produce, recently expired products, others left over construction materials and recycled products. 

We don’t need luxury, we don’t need the best ... we just want to save lives and create a world of happiness and contentedness.

When we can meet our basic needs, we are happy ... so very happy.

Thank YOU for making that happen.


Join us on
Facebook:         www.facebook.com/RikkisRefuge\
                  www.facebook.com/vincent.cat
                  www.facebook.com/Kerry.Hilliard
Rikki’s Web Site: www.rikkisrefuge.org
Blog:             www.rikkisrefuge.blogspot.com/
Help the Animals: www.rikkisrefuge.org/FeedMe
Re-Tail:          www.facebook.com/ReTail.org
   our thrift store
   Location:  3503 Lafayette Blvd, Fredericksburg VA 22408  
   Phone:     540-891-5300
   Hours:     10 am - 6 pm Monday - Saturday
              noon - 5 pm - Sunday



 

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