OURNALThursday, December 19, 2014 Volume 78 Issue 21

Her “Wildest” Dream Turns Into a Life Saving Reality

as well as donations and other minor fundraising efforts, shaving her head and selling her hair. With this profit, progression that she experienced before and after documentary to show the physical and mental $4000 from fundraising in the form of a small work pays off. Just six years ago, she raised more than

Well, let Campbell be the one to tell you that hard operating her very own wildlife rehabilitation center. her wildest and craziest dream; building, owning and ponytail for a long, hard determination to accomplish willingly decided to exchange her long, luscious

was no turning back; nor did she even want to. She very

As Victoria Campbell watched all 26” of her beautiful blonde hair fall to the ground, she knew there

How a Haircut and a Passion Helped a Local Cornell Graduate Open a Wildlife Rehabilitation Center.

W I N T E R 2 0 1 4

You can help her!

stores) for the animals to eat

Growing and/or finding food (at local food pantries/grocery

Transporting of animals and/or picking up food from donation centers

Working outdoors (Ex: building cages and enclosures)

Photographing and Video-graphing (mainly for WTS’s YouTube channel and monthly newsletter to keep people emotionally invested)

Fundraising and Public Relations

Caring for the animals (feeding, cleaning, medicating)

Volunteers are always welcome! Opportunities include:

2

THE LOREM IPSUMS SUMMER 2016

abandoned

according to Journalist Liz Lawyer from The Ithaca Journal explains.

What makes this dream of hers even crazier though, according to Campbell, is the reality that she doesn’t “earn money from this work and it is the equivalent of about 10 full time jobs!...[she is] in charge of everything from veterinary care to janitorial service to website design.” With over two hundred patients treated and released since the sanctuary opened, Campbell barely has any time to herself. Not only does she have to follow the animals’ inflexible routines of medicine, meals, and maintenance; she is also very determined to educate and inform the public about their local wildlife and how to help an injured and/or

streets in the woods (about it)”, or at least

volunteer experience at the Cornell Wildlife Health Clinic (WHC), Campbell succeeded opening (and maintaining) what is now considered “the place [for wild animals] to go when [they’re] hurt or sick…[she] feel[s] like there’s word out on the

Cornell University of Veterinary Medicine and her With the combined her knowledge from the

accomplished by opening her own non-profit wildlife recuperate and learn to be wild again” could only be dream of creating a place where animals “go to traveled with her qualifications. This is because her surgeon, but she has decided to take the path less thriving veterinarian or even a specialty animal certifications, Campbell could easily be a financially

With her elite education and plethora of rehabilitation center. potential patients can be accepted into her animals’ needs in the hope that one day, all of her infrastructure to accommodate all of the various larger, fully-equipped commercial facility with special WTS’s main problem, Campbell hopes to relocate to a rehabilitation center a few hours away). This being obligated to turn animals away (but usually to another than her small facilities can handle, and is sometimes understanding, Campbell often receives more ‘patients’

Partially due to lack of education and/or

WINTER 2014

Victoria Campbell is truly an amazing person and she is a real-life example of how dreams really can come true if the hard work, time, and available resources are fully utilized.