Szczedrzykowice, Prochowice municipality, Legnica County. This is where the Fundacja Centaurus farm is located; for 15 years, the foundation has been involved in rescuing animals. The association’s members care for 500 horses, as well as many other farm animals: goats, sheep, pigs and cows.
“We are not afraid for ourselves; we are afraid for our animals. Without supplies, they will starve to death,” says Weronika Nieborak of Centaurus. “Hay is disappearing at this point as quickly as toilet paper from store shelves.”
The foundation’s appeal follows:
Dear friends, we are afraid. We put off sharing this information for a long time. But we must announce it before it is too late.
After 15 years of activity, Centaurus is on the brink. We do not know where we will be tomorrow. Nevertheless, today our continued activity is in question, although we are working to the end and are accepting as planned the animals whose rescue we had committed to. The tragedy now unfolding around the world has also reached animals. They are 100% dependent on us, people. Without us, they simply face death. And our persistence and sincerest intentions will be of no use here.
For 15 years, we have rescued animals. We have given a new life to more than 1,100 horses, more than 500 dogs, hundreds of cats and several hundred farm and wild animals. In Szczedrzykowice, we run Europe’s largest horse sanctuary, where we care for 500 horses every day. And nearly 300 other animals. All of this is thanks to you, because we are perfectly aware that animals cannot be fed with love alone. We are the authors of more than 3,000 social campaigns for animals and nature. We also tried to share the fact that you support us so strongly—for 15 years, 500,000 people from around the world have supported our animal initiatives. Although Poles have helped us mainly. And we passed that help on—we provided financial and material assistance to other organizations, kept animals—mainly dozens of horses—for many organizations free of charge for years, or treated them. This spring, we planned to purchase a 56-hectare sanctuary to accommodate the growing number of animals, because our farm was no longer sufficient. We had such plans! We planned to write to you and ask you, according to your means, to help us raise funds, because you always helped, you were reliable—and together we did what seemed impossible. The new sanctuary was to include a rehabilitation area, a designated area for wild animals, a clinic for elderly animals and many other facilities for animals.
Meanwhile, we have to write a completely different appeal.
We beg you, help our animals—so that we do not disappear from the map of Europe. Because everything changed in one second.
As you know, we often write appeals for help buying animals out of danger, and sometimes for help with treatment. We managed to cope with feeding, and with veterinary care as well. We took it as a matter of honor—not to burden you with everything. We had a number of projects for companies and sought funding abroad. We wanted to be responsible and self-reliant. But now—we feel like children. We cannot manage. We are no longer even terrified; this is madness. We look at our animals, completely unaware of what is happening around them. We read information about successive areas affected by the virus, mass panic and quarantines. At the same time, we realize that a moment may come—or may already have come—when people stop caring for the animals of various organizations, and we will have to accept this, because it is difficult to expect people to choose these animals when their own world is shaking at its foundations, and everyone also has animals of their own. We do not know whether we will exist in two months, we do not know what will happen to hundreds of horses, and perhaps many would consider it blasphemous to think about this when so many people are dying around the world today as a result of the epidemic.
We care for more than 500 horses and hundreds of other animals. That is the most in Europe. Sometimes it terrified us, because you know what? We always knew that two months of downtime would be enough for us to disappear from the map. Over these 15 years, various situations have occurred—in Poland and around the world. But our animals always managed to survive. That is how it was, and that was that. That is how it works. Now our animals have no chance.
The situation is dramatic. We still have a supply of oats, but it will not last long, and we also do not know how long everything will last. If anyone at the farm is placed under quarantine, no one will be able to enter with supplies. Neither oats, nor hay, nor anything else. Animals that fall ill will not receive help. Besides... deliveries will soon stop arriving, because the companies that have financed our animals’ regular daily care for years are simply withdrawing. As a result of the epidemic, they have either already gone bankrupt or are cutting expenses.
We do not know, dear friends, whether we will see you at Open Day in the autumn. I do not know whether we will even still be here then. Each month, we need several hundred thousand [zlotys] to pay for treatment, fuel for tractors, bills, feed for horses, food for dogs, ongoing repairs (when, for example, a stall or fence collapses), animal boarding (for horses, dogs and cats) and stable staff. Yes, several hundred thousand. This is the amount we had to beg from companies for each month, and for years we managed to obtain support from many companies for this ordinary farm life.
But now that has collapsed. Companies refuse to support us because they themselves are going under. Retirees write letters or call and explain in despair that they are afraid to go to the post office because they are in a high-risk group. Well, we ourselves ask them not to go. Not to risk their health, because many of the people who support us are over 80. Most of our donors are older people, for whom a horse was and remains a symbol of freedom, the struggle for Poland, and a reminder of lancer traditions—or of the gray horse standing behind their fence when they played in the countryside as children. Nevertheless, Ms. Zdzisława wrote us a letter, which we received before the weekend, saying that she does not know whether to choose her own safety or helping the animals.
You may accuse us of not being prepared for this. No, we were not. But no one in the world was... At first, we tried not to think about what might happen. We focused on working with the animals and on information campaigns. We received information that one delivery of dog food would not arrive, that an unpaid invoice remained for treating dogs and sterilizing more cats, that a company which paid for deliveries of a large part of the straw had withdrawn, and that the company supporting hay deliveries had suspended its donations. Nearly 200 of these emails have arrived in recent days. That is 90% of the companies and individuals who supported the animals’ daily lives. Without their support, our animals will starve to death. No, a miracle will not happen. Simply.
Dear friends, we are sorry... Perhaps we could have prevented all this, perhaps we should have foreseen something, perhaps we should have had several years’ worth of supplies—we do not know... We failed. Everything is falling apart; Centaurus and its animals are falling apart. No, we are no longer panicking. We panicked all weekend. The telephone lines were hot day and night as we discussed possible solutions. But the ideas collapsed immediately. This morning, we all met in silence, each person standing far from the others. Because there are no ideas in a world that has itself gone mad with fear.
We know that our animals have no chance. For many years, we accepted horses from other organizations that could not cope. We gathered so many of them that we know no one will manage this. The 500 horses alone cost 250,000 zlotys a month to feed. Who can bear that burden... and what about treatment, and the hundreds of other animals, the animals in boarding facilities? We are sorry, we are sorry to you, and to our animals.
And we know that you may have other things on your mind, thousands of your own matters, reasons and worries. Therefore, we stand before you with full understanding of whatever decision you make. We want to try to save our animals and our activity; we want to remain on the map of the Old Continent as the largest sanctuary for horses and other animals. But we are afraid. We are afraid that our determination will not be enough.
One of the suppliers told us that he would no longer deliver straw on credit. He also added that it was no time to spare the roses while the forests were burning.
Soon we will run out of food for the animals, and that will be the greatest tragedy. Soon we will not be able to pay the stable staff; we are no longer able to pay some of the invoices for treating the animals (because, apart from fundraising campaigns, we have hundreds of animals that visit the veterinarian several times a month); we have paid for the animal boarding facilities for the last time, and bought the last supply of oats from the last fundraiser. In our entire history, we have never been behind on anything. We are sorry to you once again. We failed. We were sure that our animals would manage to survive on their own, that the world was on their side.
But in the face of such a tragedy, human and timeless, our animals may soon cease to matter to this world. We beg you, with the last of our hope. If you can... We beg you, help our animals survive; help the sanctuary not disappear from the map of Europe. In a month or two, there may be nothing left to save. One million is needed for three months of survival. Yes, that is what it costs. And for many years, through various projects, we managed to raise that amount of funding from companies every month.
Three months of simply maintaining our animals costs one million. Will the sanctuary animals prove worth a million in a world shaking at its foundations? We do not know. But we owe them this attempt. Even if we fail, at least we will be able to look each other in the eye and say that we tried to save them.
Let us save these roses, even if the forests are burning...
Please support our animals with even one zloty.
How can you help?
- https://www.ratujemyzwierzaki.pl/strach
- make a donation with the title POMOC to:
PKO BP 15 1020 5226 0000 6002 0220 0350
Fundacja Centaurus ul. Wałbrzyska 6-8 52-314 Wrocław - PAYPAL: kontakt@centaurus.org.pl with the title POMOC
- send an SMS containing CENTAURUS to 7412 and download a wallpaper (cost: 4.92 including VAT).