The nonprofit has an opportunity to tell the story of how the organization adapted to tremendous external changes in the last year.
At the start of the pandemic, as many people began working from home, more began finding orphaned or injured animals in their neighborhoods, or on the trail, and bringing them to WildCare for medical care. Being defined as an “essential service” under governmental mandates, WildCare’s Wildlife Hospital continued to take in all patients brought to us; however, due to Covid restrictions in March 2020, we instantly went from having hundreds of volunteers assisting in the hospital, down to zero, putting great stress on hospital workers and staff who filled in doing any job asked of them. However, our staff continued to expertly deliver on our mission and provide high quality care to our hospital patients by working long hours and relying on staff members from other departments for help. We have now brought back just one-third of our on-site clinic volunteers, with great success. The pandemic taught us that volunteers work more effectively in small teams and with greater responsibilities, and as a result, we have restructured our corps to require a lower number of volunteers overall.
Our education programs before Covid were entirely in-person events in classrooms, at our Center, and in our local parks. Our educational programs usually serve 35,000 students per year. Upon inception of the pandemic in March 2020 due to Covid pandemic restrictions of the State of California and Marin County, our educational operations were essentially completely closed. For many months, we pivoted to an entirely distance-learning model. In the school year starting September 2020, with a significantly reduced schedule due to COVID-19, we were still able to engage 8,162 students via our online distance learning programs. In the fall of 2021, we began to deliver in-person education programs and nature hikes again.