Grace Animal Sanctuary in Joostenbergvlakte has only five months to find a new sanctuary to house more than 80 rescued animals and three permanent staff members.
Founded by animal lover and activist Caron Burger in 2016, the non-profit was given notice a little more than a week ago to vacate their premises on the farm affectionately named Grace Land.
The organisation rescues and rehabilitates lost, injured, abandoned and abused animals, to be placed in loving families.
Since its inception the non-profit has rehabilitated and rehomed more than 1 500 animals, something they consider a huge accomplishment. Furthermore, the established education programmes eradicate animal abuse.
“We had to officially put out the news to the public, that the place we have called home for almost five years will be no longer as of the end of August,” says founder Caron Burger.
“Our tenancy at our farm, Graceland, has basically been on a year-to- year basis, but with a long-term goal – this has very unexpectedly come to an end and we received notice.”
Burger says the organisation is currently in high gear looking at every single avenue.
“We are exploring our options and is reaching out to inform the world, to see if anyone could assist us with any form of help. We basically have five months to find a new and better Grace Land, to house our employees and the animals we care for and love,” she says.
“As an animal NPO, funding is not something we just have readily available at any given time, and over the next few weeks our main goal will be to find our new safe space for our animals.”
Hoping for a miracle
Grace Land currently houses 40 dogs, two ponies, two cows, four sheep, four tortoises, 25 chickens, four cats and three staff members.
“On the day we move, we need to take down everything – electricals, fencing, poles, shade ports and move everything from the farm to our hopefully new property. Our biggest goal right now is to find a new property, where we can basically start over and ensure the well-being and safety of our animals. Once that is in place, the building, moving, cleaning, and everything that goes along with that will need to be set up and put in place in order for us to move our animals.”
Burger says their biggest hope at this point is to come up with various fundraising campaigns, to “by some miracle” raise enough funds to purchase their own land not too far out of the Northern Suburbs of Cape Town.
“In this way we will never have to go through this ever again.”
Apart from animal welfare the organisation runs an outreach programme in Wesbank, where 850 children are provided with food and 700 animals fed.
