This month’s Nonprofit Spotlight is for a wonderful organization called Wildcare.
Each year, Wildcare treats over 3,500 ill, injured and orphaned wild animal patients! In addition to that wonderful work, they also reach over 20,000 kids and and adults through their education programs.
Based near San Rafael, CA, this nonprofit has been dedicated to wildlife in some form or another since the 1950s. In 1954, a local church gave their old hall to the local Optimists Club who moved it to its permanent location, in what is now Albert Park. The Club leased the site for $1 a year to another local group who was establishing a Junior Museum, which was a type of children’s museum focused on animals and nature.
In the 1960s, the name was changed to the Louise A. Boyd Natural Science Museum after a local artic explorer and philanthropist. The Boyd was known as the place to go for families in Marin to learn about animals and natural science. Over time, the public associated them with wildlife so strongly that people began to bring sick or injured animals they encountered to the museum. Over time, the Boyd Museum became the Marin Wildlife Center and then the California Center for Wildlife.
Meanwhile, a different organization the Terwilliger Nature Education Foundation was formed after decades of tireless education efforts by Elizabeth Terwilliger and those she touched with her message of learning to love and nurture the natural world through using the senses. Award-winning films were made that were eventually seen by some 40 million school children, and an office and program site in Corte Madera was established.
The two like-minded nonprofits merged in 1994 and have been doing their part for wildlife ever since.
