Thank You from the Elephants

(pictured above, elephants and keepers at GRI Elephant Orphanage in Zambia, shared from the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation)

Last year, Elephantopia launched as an official nonprofit. What started as a simple awareness blog is now making a real difference in the lives of elephants and humans around the world. And we could not have done it without your support!

We are a fully volunteer run organization, which allows us to channel your gifts right to our projects with little overhead costs in administration and marketing. From June - December of 2014, we were able to raise $9,000USD for the GRI Elephant Orphanage in Zambia to care for Kavalamanja, an orphaned elephant victim of the ivory trade. These funds are used to cover her food, medical expenses, and the costs of employing her caretakers who live with her 24/7. Below is a letter from GRI that shows just how critical your gifts are:

Elephantopia, Thank you for your most recent donation in December. As you know this really is an absolutely vital income for us at the Elephant Orphanage Project and enables us to continue our work rescuing, rehabilitating and releasing the orphaned elephants of Zambia. Our budgets increase every year with inflation and ever growing costs and requirements and this donation really does mean a lot to us!

Thanks again for all of your efforts and hard work over 2014 to help us continue the vital conservation work we do! Please do let us know if there is anything further we can help with or send to you.

We also used your gifts to participate in the Global March for Elephants & Rhinos on October 4, 2014. At this event, we reached over 200 people - these families were able to learn more about the importance of elephants as keystone species in the ecosystem and the crisis of the elephant trade. There was a station to write thank you letters to rangers in Zambia who put their lives on the line to protect Africa’s wildlife from poaching criminals and a station to help support an orphaned elephant victim of the ivory trade, Kavala.

We couldn’t have done any of this without your help. Below is a pie chart that shows where your gifts from 2014 went - and we hope you will join us in 2015 by becoming a reoccurring donor for Kavala! We are excited about the upcoming events planned: we will be participating in a children’s festival in Houston this March, in Houston art festivals this summer and for the third year in a row the Global March for Elephants & Rhinos. We also have plans to launch an interactive elephant app and a free ppt presentation for use in school and club settings to help spread awareness about the ivory crisis. We are working to achieve an ivory ban in Texas through letters and petitions to our legislature and will continue to support Kavala at the GRI Elephant Orphanage. Lastly, we are planning a service safari trip for 2016 with Journey to Africa. Thank you again for your support - together we are working to SAVE ELEPHANTS and BUILD COMMUNITY.