Everybody Deserves a Chance

Everybody deserves a chance.

That’s how MickaCoo started. There was a gap in the animal rescue world: pigeons and doves were being put to death in Bay Area shelters. Everyone else had a rescue group, except these birds.

MickaCoo is the only Bay Area organization dedicated to rescuing unreleasable domestic pigeons and doves, who, without a home, are dead. Our purpose is to meet that one simple need.

In a world that gets more complicated every day, this is one problem with a simple solution. Together, you and I and all of us have closed that deadly gap in the animal rescue community and we are proof of the lives that can be saved when we have compassion for everyone. When we give everyone a chance.

Before MickaCoo, this problem was invisible. Nobody even knew that hundreds of pigeons and doves each year were being euthanized in shelters. Now these birds have us speaking up for them. We’re giving each one a chance to live.

If you are reading this, you’ve been part of this solution. Together, we have done something that none of us could have done alone. You've helped spread the word; some of you have adopted birds; many of you have volunteered and donated; all of you have helped.

This year alone we fostered and found wonderful forever homes for more than 300 birds, including 12 king pigeons that were dumped like trash in a parking lot, 216 Persian High Flyer pigeons that were left behind when a Berkeley pet store closed down and 10 white homers who'd been used for years in lab testing. Think about that. Most of these birds would have been euthanized if it weren't for you.

Together, with each of us doing the part that we can, however big or small, we have created a capacity to respond that no one of us could provide alone. The MickaCoo network helps people when they find strays, when they need help for their birds because of a health or financial crisis, when there are birds timing out in shelters...

I’m writing to ask you to do it again this year.

MickaCoo is growing. We’re now a sponsored project of Community Initiatives, which means we are becoming a sustainable organization. We will be able to attract grants and continue filling this need. Each of YOU has helped us get here.

We’re headed into a new year, and I need your help once again to save the lives of birds. I am asking you to renew your commitment to MickaCoo through 2012. There are three important ways that you can help.

• Adopt! MickaCoo is full with more than 115 birds in foster care and we have a waiting list for new birds that need to come in. Create an aviary. Apply to adopt. MickaCoo's pigeon and dove adopters LOVE their birds. We are open and available throughout the holidays. Pass it on.

• Volunteer. Join our Outreach Team or Foster & Adoption Team or our Fundraising Team or our IT Team (please!)

• Donate. Please, if you can, make a financial contribution, invest in MickaCoo’s future. One way is to support us becoming a permanent member of the GlobalGiving online community. To do so, we must prove that we can raise $4000 from 50 donors before the end of the year and we are 71% of the way there. We need at least 24 more donors to contribute a total of $1140 in the next 16 days. Click here to help us meet the GlobalGiving challenge.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for all of your support. It is an incredible privilege for me to be part of this team with you. Together we are helping birds that no one else would help. Because of you and MickaCoo, pigeons and doves have a chance.

Elizabeth, founding director

MickaCoo Pigeon & Dove Rescue