The winds were whipping across the Golden West parking lot but the band played on and people still came to the Fifth Annual Donkey Jamboree to help the plight of these beasts of burden.
The money needed to care for these animals is quite the strain on our federal government so Mark Myers, founder of Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue is willing to take action and ease the federal “burden of these beasts;” but he needs money.
The actions Myers takes is traveling the country, fundraising, contracting, rounding up the donkeys and placing them in the Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescues on the ranch in Texas or right here in Scenic, Arizona.
Fundraising projects, such as the Donkey Jamboree, help considerably with raising funds for the Scenic rescue/adoption center which was started by Joan Dunkle and Fred Clark.
Dunkle and Clark take every opportunity they have in Mesquite that allows them to raise funds and care for the donkeys until they are adopted.
Myers is otherwise engaged, being the voice for the donkeys and raising money, somewhere else in the country but he always manages to be in Mesquite for the Jamboree.
Myers spends this time in Mesquite because of the love and support the community shows for the donkeys and the importance of the Scenic rescue, which is becoming much more than just peaceful pastures and an adoption center.
Myers, because of Dunkle’s and Clark’s generosity and love for the donkeys, has acquired, long-term, the ability to begin a new wild burrow training center right across from the adoption center.
Dunkle and Clark donated 13 acres of their land for the wild burro project’s new training center and it’s a good thing because they are about to get a new herd and with it maybe some new surprises like the one they got just a month ago.
Donkeys are constantly coming and going, many of them brought in, up until now, from the Texas training center, which can house over a 1,000 donkeys at any given time.
Donkeys being normally healthy animals get blood tested before released to the rescues but unless there are obvious signs of illness or injury, don’t normally get tested for certain issues.
Scenic had just gotten some new donkeys from the Texas training center and hadn’t had much time to familiarize themselves with the new herd before Olivia gave them quite the surprise.
One of the volunteers found some placenta in the pasture; everyone was shocked and set out to find the new arrival. It wasn’t long before they spotted one of the new Jennies, Olivia, in the corner nuzzling her new foal that they have named Phoebe.
The team at the adoption center knows the herd now and they are hoping for and, appear as if, they are expecting another new arrival of the ‘foalish’ kind but Myers has plans that are far larger.
His current mission is another roundup of over 300-400 this year from Mohave and Death Valley, he’s currently in contract negotiations with the BLM and after they are blood-tested and medically approved, the Scenic rescue/training center is getting them all.
The new training center will keep the females and the babies who will be made adoption ready at the center then walked across the street where the adoption center will house them and ultimately find them their forever homes.
The males will then go to Texas where they will be neutered and possibly returned to Dunkle and Clark’s adoption center.
Community members who ride the storm out and weather the blustery winds to attend events like the jamboree that make all of Myers’, Dunkle’s, Clark’s and the many volunteers’ efforts possible.
It’s all about the money raised at these events that allow the teams to feed, house and care for the many mouths they expect and the ones they don’t. Your dollars make all difference to the donkeys who weather many blustery days trying to survive their storm.
Dunkle, Clark, Myers, the volunteers and especially the wild burros thank you. For more information on the works of the PVDR or how you can help support the Wild Burro Project visit their website at http://www.donkeyrescue.org/wild-burro-project.html or visit these beautiful creatures in person by contacting 928-3474506.
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