When we first arrived here on Vancouver Island in 2015, having made the decision to move from De Winton Alberta for the sake of our rescues, and to create a sanctuary movement in a new place, there was much work to be done – we had to clear land, dig trenches, erect fencing and shelters, and restore a very old and failing barn. As we progressed, we had the shocking news that the barn on the property was so old it had been built without a foundation, and was therefore literally sinking into the ground, meaning that restoring it would be impossible. We added “build a new barn” to the list of essential property improvements and continued the work.
Fast forward to the summer of 2020, 5 years later, and that goal still seemed to be far away. Thanks to this amazing community and our incredible supporters, we had raised $100,000 over the course of two years towards building a new barn. However, after having architectural and structural engineered plans drawn up, we were given an absolutely shocking quote of over $400,000! Much of this was due to rising costs of lumber after both a lumber strike in 2019 and the economical effects of Covid-19 this year. We were unsure how to proceed, even with scaling the barn back from what we had designed, we would never get the cost down to the amount we had raised.
That was when something amazing happened. Ladysmith local (oh, and international superstar as well) Pamela Anderson came out for a visit. Pamela had been living back on the island for a while, and we were excited to have her come out – after almost 20 years, having someone of her stature visit and appreciate the work we do was an incredible affirmation that what we’ve worked so hard at was as meaningful as we believe it is.
We were very excited to have Pamela sign one of our 2021 calendars, and meeting her was a special treat. She was so kind and gracious, and we really enjoyed having her out. During her visit, I (Lucie) of course told her about our history, including the barn and how that particular saga had progressed. It’s hard to describe what happened next, as it honestly still feels like a dream.
A few hours after her visit, Pamela came back, but this time she brought her partner, Dan Hayhurst, with her. Dan is a local builder with DHS Homes and he and Pamela informed us that they had decided that they were going to build this barn, and not only that, they were going to donate the labour and help find others to do the same so that we could build it at the cost of only $100,000 as we’d originally planned! We were all blown away. It was almost too good to be true, and we really haven’t had time to process it all as since then, things have moved at lightspeed! We have already applied for and received our permit to begin construction, finished our new aviary and moved all 63 of our previously barn dwelling birds to it, and today, November 10, 2020, we said goodbye to our old barn to begin construction on the new! Our old barn has served us so well, and has stood on the property for over five decades, and we are grateful to her even as we are excited for the new one.
This new barn will be an absolutely life-changing addition to the sanctuary, and will truly set us up for the future. We’ll be writing about it in detail as we get closer, but as you can tell just from the 3D rendering of the design, to say it will be an improvement would be a massive understatement!
We are so grateful for all the incredible support of this community, and for the faith they’ve had in us throughout all of this. Having Ms. Anderson and Mr. Hayhurst helping us in such a huge way will allow us to finally follow through on the promise we made to our supporters when we fundraised for this barn, and we couldn’t be more excited.
Love always,
Lucie
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