Cedar Hill Animal Sanctuary cleans up damage after severe weather
LOWNDES COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – Cedar Hill Animal Sanctuary is a non-profit organization dedicated to rescuing domestic and exotic animals in need.
Many of the animals have been abused or neglected.
Recently, the strong storms caused damage at the sanctuary.
“It’s been intense. This storm season has been really rough for us. We literally feel like we’re fighting ocean waves,” said Executive Director Jaena Frye.
Jaena Frye said her team has come together to repair the damage and clean, but they really rely on the community’s help.
Cedar Hill is funded through donations and leans heavily on volunteers for its work.
“This recent storm, we had two massive trees lay over our big cat house,” Frye said. “We lost part of our pasture fencing. We lost part of our dog pen fencing. And these repairs can be thousands of dollars. And when you’re running on nonprofit, just donations, that’s a big hit for us.”
These repairs have a significant impact on the budget.
“We do what we can, but that’s all we can do,” said Operations Director Alexis Mattes.
“We run on about $57,000 a month. That’s our that’s our monthly budget. And any time we have to tap into that, we now have to push for even more, or we have to pull it from other income that we really don’t want to touch. That’s our reserves,” said Frye.
This makes community even more important, especially when it comes to tree cleanup.
Safety is a key priority at Cedar Hill. They have protocols for storms and a place for everyone to go as they roll through.
“That’s our reserves,” Frye said. “When we know we have storms coming up, we move lions, we move tigers, we move dogs, we move bobcats. ”
Frye said they are the voice for these animals, and they work to protect these animals from exploitation.
“Trying to tame wild animals to be your domestic isn’t going to work. We need to protect the species as long as we can before we don’t have them anymore,” Frye said.
They are in need of volunteers and donations. If you’d like to help, you can call 662-574-2714.
They also want to remind the community to do research before adopting animals and to spay and neuter your pets.
