While doing our evening park tour last night we had a few people asking about the best way to support the parks at this time, and it’s a question which come sup quite often, so I decided yesterday to write this article about how you can best help us during this time.
The first lockdown was very tough because of how long it was and of course it came as more of a shock than the second one because the country has never gone through anything like that before, not during peace times at least. However this second lockdown is challenging for us for a whole different reason. Yes, we know that it should be much shorter at 4 weeks, however 4 weeks of having no income is difficult at any time of year when you still have animals to feed & keep clean, vet bills to pay and staff to keep employed. This time of year however is also when all of our heating comes on and the animals need more food and bedding than at any other time of year.
This lockdown is just as tough for us and there are certainly ways in which you can help us!
Buying Products
People ask how best to help out without it costing us too much and this is a difficult one because no matter how a financial donation is made we still need to cover some kind of cost, whether it is paying to deposit it in the bank or paying a company such as Facebook or Paypal to handle the transfer.
However, one thing which doesn’t cost us anything at all is buying products for us. You can either do this directly through the Amazon wish lists which I will cover in a minute, or you can buy items (and it’s not always food) from the supermarket or your local green grocer / farm shop. Here are some things which we will always use and you can drop them at our gate – there’s a number on the gate if you need help with it:
- Vegetables (especially potatoes, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, spring greens, leeks, parsnips, pumpkins, swedes and much more).
- Salad items such as tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuces etc.
- Fruits such as berries, bananas, oranges and apples, but we do use far fewer fruits than vegetables!
- Peanut butter
- Honey
- Hay
- Straw
- Sugarfree jelly
- Sugarfree squash
- Alfa A horse feed
- Dry dog and cat food
- Frozen snake / crocodile food (mice and rats or all sizes)
- Nuts (both in and out of the shell)
- Cuttlefish
- Wood shavings (and animal bedding brand of wood chipping type will do)
- Washing up liquid
If you want to help us out with items on the Amazon wish lists there are two different types where you can do this! Firstly there is the COVID-19 wish list, which covers all sorts of different feed and cleaning items, which they get divided out between the sections at both Wingham and Sandwich Wildlife parks. That list can be found here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/2A9JGJEVRM9UM?ref_=wl_share
If on the other hand you want to sponsor our new area of the park, which we are still keeping secret but can tell you that it will be housing a British species breed & release program as well as providing homes and feed for wild animals, whilst giving an amazing opportunity for education, you can do so with the list below. With this second list we have been getting sponsored by Premier Signs in Thanet who will be printing vinyl butterfly stickers for our sponsor board with your names on – all you need to do to qualify for that is to spend £40 or more on the list below and then email us at info@winghamwildlifepark.co.uk with the receipt and the name you want on the butterfly once the section opens.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/2OCQQP7IIRN35?ref_=wl_share
This just means that we can continue to develop that part of the park, even with the 2 closures we faced this year due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Amazon Smile
If you have an amazon account, please also sign up for Amazon Smile – it doesn’t cost you anything at all to join and it means that when you put in the address for our wish list, you replace the front with smile and as long as you have selected us as your charity we will also get a commission from the sale. That applies to any qualifying purchase you make from Amazon!
Give as you live
This is a very similar process to Amazon Smile and it just means that from various websites (over 4,000 in fact) including ebay, M&S, Boots, Booking.com, Argos, Groupon, and many more, you buy as you usually would, with no extra charge for you, but we receive a commission!
https://www.giveasyoulive.com/
Direct donations
The easiest way to donate is the more “traditional” way of making a financial donation which we can then use to purchase the feed and bedding items we need. The benefit of this is that of course it also automatically goes towards our heating bills etc. With all of these, there is going to also be a small charge for us, which varies depending on where they come through, although there isn’t too much in it. The cheapest for us is probably bank transfer, with Facebook stars being the most expensive, although ALWAYS check during a live stream if Facebook has allocated you some free stars to hand out, as these cost nothing but turn in to real cash for us.
- Direct bank transfer
- Account name: Wingham Wildlife Park
- Sort Code: 60-14-05
- Account number: 52081214
- Donation purchases on our online shop
- Paypal
- GoFundMe
Buy our products
Finally please remember that our online shop is still open, and with Christmas coming up, our season tickets, gift vouchers, adoption packs and animal experiences make the perfect present at christmas for the animal lover in your life. Between Wingham and Sandwich Wildlife Park there are opportunities to meet a sloth, tamandua, porcupine, meerkats, lemurs, red pandas and much more!
