After years of not knowing if they would still call their current location home, the Alberta Institute for Wildlife Conservation (AIWC) in Madden has finally reached an agreement to purchase the land they are built on.
“Over the past four or five years we have been in a state of limbo,” said AIWC executive director Holly Duvall. “We have been at our current location since 1993, and we have called that location our home.”
As of May 7, AIWC has kicked off the Forever Home campaign to raise money to purchase the land they currently sit on. The total amount needed to purchase the land is upwards of $750,000 for the 9.69-acre property.
AIWC is a non-profit society which has operated a wildlife hospital serving Calgary, Southern Alberta and the North West Territories for more than 20 years.
Recently, the land was put up for sale and AIWC was threatened with the possibility it may have lost its home. AIWC was able to launch the Forever Home campaign in order to pay for the land and make it a stable home for the centre to build and continue to work on.
AIWC has secured a mortgage for the land, but because AIWC is non-profit society getting rid of the mortgage payment as soon as possible is the main goal.
“We don’t have core funding, so any mortgage or lease payments are coming directly out of funding that should be going towards the animals and their care,” said Duvall.
The campaign was kicked off with a generous $200,000 donation from a donor who wished to remain anonymous. AIWC is still required to raise a total of $550,000 towards the payment of its now permanent home.
The private donor also agreed to match funding totaling up to $250,000, which adds up to $450,000 out of the needed $750,000. Essentially, this means AIWC is required to raise less than half of the total amount for the close to 10 acre-property.
“We’re not government funded or anything like that,” said Duvall. “We rely solely on donations.”
“It was really in our best interest to stay in those location.”
Duvall said it would cost roughly two or three million dollars if the organization had to relocate.
These costs would have come from purchasing new land, and building a new centre.
“Because we have been in this state of limbo, we haven’t invested any more money onto our buildings and land,” said Duvall. “We didn’t want to spend money (while) we weren’t sure we would be on the land.”
“We are well known in the communities that we serve,” said Duvall. “Like I said, we’ve been in this location since 1993. A lot of people know where we are. We have a lot of support.”
A new location would have also meant the centre would have to close up shop for a time.
“If we moved, we would have had a potential break in services,” said Duvall. “We didn’t want to do that.”
Anyone wishing to donate can visit aiwcforeverhome.causevox.com.
“If people can share this with their family and friends, to try and get the word out, that would be great,” said Duvall.
