07/11/2025
It took a while, but in early September we received our special land use permit and site plan approval to operate our rescue in Armada. We’ve been working diligently all summer long to get our rescue buildings ready but with multiple major delays, they are still not finished. Our smaller building is close to being finished, while our larger building needs more work. We’ve been doing as much of the work as we can ourselves and that is another reason it’s taking longer. We’ve been meeting most weekends with our volunteers to work on the buildings but our volunteers are understandably getting burned out. Our home, which is on the same property as the rescue buildings, has also been under construction due to major flood damage, causing progress in the rescue buildings to be slowed even more. And for the past few weeks, I’ve been dealing with some significant health complications making physical labor very hard for me.
All of our bunnies have been in foster homes since we moved out of our Capac location in June and we told our fosters we should be able to take the bunnies back by the end of the summer. But that didn’t happen. Our smaller building is well insulated, drywalled, heated, and has electricity so we’ve decided to put off finishing it until early next year so we can bring some foster buns back now. Many of our fosters are not able to continue to foster into the holiday season. With limited space in our smaller building, we are also in need of new fosters. If yiu are interested in fostering, please fill out an application on our website at www.romeorabbitrescue.com. Our volunteers have been absolutely wonderful, but they are needing a break We are looking for new volunteers to join our team and have volunteer days this weekend, Saturday and Sunday, to get the smaller rescue building ready to bring foster buns back next week. I would love to pick up new volunteers, both those experienced with some amount of construction or DIY/handy man work and those interested in routine bunny care. This is what needs to be done this weekend:
1) We have a very few pieces of drywall that still need to go up so we can clear the drywall we don’t need out of the building.
2) We have 4’x14’ ceiling panels that that need to be screwed to the ceiling joists. I have one volunteer planning to come Saturday to work on this, we need one or two more to assist him.
3) this Sunday, the 9th, we need to lay rubber flooring down in the smaller buildings and then organize our supplies in that buildings to be functional for bunny housing and care over the winter.
4) If we have a great turn out and if it’s dry, we have a huge burn pile that we need to continue to move over to our fire pit to burn it. (I do not want to simply light up the burn pile as we do have animals living in there.)
5)) if we have a great turn out and people with experience taping and mudding drywall, this needs to be done in both buildings.
6) if we are blessed enough to find some construction workers willing to donate their services, we need to add joists to the ceiling of the pole barn in order to be able to attach ceiling panels in that building
7) on November 24th, ground works will be coming out to repair the concrete floor in the pole barn and we need to clear out as much stuff from the pole barn as possible to give them room to work. I purchased large tarps to set some stuff up outside and cover to protect from weather.
FYI - we have a few amazingly friendly, affectionate, and adorable rescue bunnies in our smaller building now we will need to work around and they would LOVE to be loves on by visitors while you are here.
If you are interested in joining our volunteer team, either for construction/organization/building prep, or for routine pen cleaning and bunny care, we need you! Please PM us.
We are a 501c3 nonprofit and have spent tens of thousands so far on these buildings and on permits. We rely heavily on donations from our supporters to make this possible. If you cannot physically volunteer, please consider donating if you are able. No amount is too small. Even $5 helps!
If you own your own company, construction, handyman, etc. and are willing to volunteer your time to help us get these buildings ready, your company will become a corporate sponsor and we will promote your business ongoing as well as give you permanent recognition in our rescue buildings by engraving your companies name and logo on our sponsors wall. Please spread the word to everyone you know. If we have a good enough turn out, we will plan to have hot beverages and hot food to feed everyone. Please PM us if you can help and we will add you to our volunteer chat group.
