By Luke Voogt
Matilda the wombat is just one of the cute critters at Jirrahlinga who need volunteers to give the Barwon Heads sanctuary some much-needed TLC.
“We’ve always got our head above water,” said the sanctuary’s Kristi Smith.
“But because we’ve been here so long our buildings, cages and fences are starting to fall apart.”
Kristi renewed the call for help as 19 workplace volunteers tidied the sanctuary’s kangaroo and koala areas on Thursday.
“They’ve been awesome – it makes a big difference for us,” Kristi said, “especially with school holidays coming up – we want the place to look nice.”
With miniscule government funding, the sanctuary relies heavily on its core of dedicated volunteers and entry fees over the holiday period.
But Kristi said the sanctuary needed more people willing to treat volunteering as “a second job.”
“One of the things people don’t realise until they get out here is it’s a lot of hard work.
“We need people that can garden, paint, build and help fix things – not just hug the animals. Even if they can give us half a day, we can always work around their hours.”
However, she added that hugs with the resident animals would be one of the rewards on offer for hardworking volunteers.
Kristi had just returned after three years volunteering with orangutans in Borneo.
She was hard-pressed to name her favourite animal at the sanctuary but said Matilda was “hard to walk past”.
“She’s adorable but they all have their funny little personalities.”
The Karingal BacLinks Foundation organised staff members from Geelong businesses for the working bee on Thursday.
Foundation manager Joanne Forssman said Jirrahlinga received more than 5000 calls a year to help sick, injured and orphaned animals.
“The work of volunteers is vital to Jirrahlinga, which relies on public donations and fundraising activities,” Joanne said.
“All types of donations – time, money and in kind – are essential to the everyday running of the sanctuary.”
The day was the first of six Karingal BacLinks Foundation volunteering activities for 2017.
