Saving Franklin Zoo Charitable Trust & The Animal Connection

The Saving Franklin Zoo Charitable Trust has been established to save the old Franklin Zoo site in Tuakau, and to ensure that this land is then put in Trust, so that it will be kept for all New Zealanders, forever.

The idea is to connect like-minded people and unite them in helping us make a difference.  To save a precious piece of New Zealand, and to create something that will benefit us for generations to come.  We understand that together we are greater than our individual parts, and that collectively, we can achieve great things. We simply need to stand together and say YES.

Our goal is to raise NZ$2,900,000 via crowdfunding, to purchase the old Franklin Zoo site and create a community hub that will enrich the lives of both people and animals.   Once the target is met, funds will be released and the property sale completed, with ownership of this precious place transferring to the Trust, ensuring that it will be held in Trust for all New Zealanders, forever.  

Then we will build The Animal Connection.   This will be an animal sanctuary, but one where people can come and connect with our animals, so humans and animals can nurture each other.  We will be renovating existing buildings, creating a new café, and putting in cabins so people can stay and work with us and our animals.  We also plan on running special programmes for people so they can gain the benefits of animal-assisted therapy.   These will range from reading programmes for children to programmes for at risk youth, to enhance communication and empathy.

This campaign also ensures we have enough to run our operation for the first two years.  With the very best possible welfare standards, and ensuring we can afford proper vet care for our animals as we receive them.  It is not our intention to require ongoing fundraising to support this venue.  We aim to be a commercially self-sustaining operation, after our first two years, with proceeds from our café, our education and therapy programmes, visitor entry fees and sponsorship packages being sufficient to ensure we can continue offering best practice welfare for every animal who come into our care.

It is not our aim to create a charity that will require ongoing public donations to continue our work – just this one off campaign that will allow us to secure this land and honour history and future generations, by providing a safe haven for some of New Zealand’s vulnerable animals and a place where humans can connect with them.

Our initial funding campaign will run until the end of December 2014. We have to reach our target to allow us to do all the work that will transform this venue into a community haven where humans can be nurtured through their connection with our rescued animals.