‘Hoo’ cares about nature? Volunteers do
Add comment January 8th, 2009
Today, I have a guest blog entry from Tina Miller at the Hoo Haven. Since it’s about nature, figured Go Green could be a good home for it.
The Heart of Hoo Haven
For the past ten years, I have volunteered with Hoo Haven Wildlife Rehabilitation & Education Center near Durand. My experience with Hoo Haven began when my neighbor found two orphaned sparrows in his eaves after a summer storm. The partially feathered birds were so weak and helpless in the summer heat that we didn’t expect them to survive. We called Karen Herdklotz at Hoo Haven for guidance. We were not only able to save them, but we were honored to release them as healthy birds. Much to our delight, those little sparrows visited us for many months afterwards. We could tell by their chirps that they were thankful, but we were even more thankful for the experience they had given us. And I personally was thankful for a place called Hoo Haven.
Over the years, I have noticed that most of our volunteer caregivers are women. While some men also volunteer, most prefer hands-on construction projects and such. I like to call the women volunteers the “heart of Hoo Haven,” and like me, they most often come to Hoo Haven with an injured or orphaned animal they desperately want to help. Then, as quick as fur can dry, they are ‘hooked on Hoo’ ~ forever.
Like me, many have found Hoo Haven as a place of healing that only God and animals can provide. The “heart of Hoo Haven” first began to beat with the facility’s founder and director, Karen Herdklotz nearly 30 years ago. Karen currently works full time as a nurse at Crusader Clinic. Her first ‘wildlife’ nursing efforts began in her kitchen and bathroom. With the support of her loving husband Steven and son Nicholos, Hoo Haven grew and grew.
Today, she has a host of dedicated volunteers with the “heart of Hoo Haven” made up of women who are typically between 16 and 65. Many hold part time jobs or have retired from a variety of professional backgrounds. The one common denominator between all of us is a lifelong passion for animals. As little girls, we would watch wildlife for hours on end and run to our mothers when we found and injured or orphaned animal. Unfortunately, there was usually no help available from a wildlife expert. The only option was to hold the poor thing as it died and give it a proper burial.
Those little girls are now grown women who still truly want to make a difference for the animals and Mother Earth. They enjoy nurturing animals from the tiniest baby bunnies to the majestic eagles. The “heart of Hoo Haven” will tell you that the ultimate reward of volunteering is release day when the healthy critter flies or scurries off to be where God intended it to be – in the wild, healthy and free. The tears that flow from our women volunteers (ok, and some men) on release day are tears of joy, pride, and faith that God will keep our precious babies safe as they go off on their own. In a sense, we are releasing all of those critters that we once buried under our swing sets and gardens.
We proudly serve as Mother Nature’s step-moms and will gladly volunteer with Hoo Haven for as long as we physically can. The “heart of Hoo” will beat for as long as the women volunteers continue to come to care for all God’s creatures great and small. I would like to encourage other women to help keep the “heart of Hoo Haven” beating strong. For information on volunteering at Hoo Haven, please visit our website at www.hoohaven.org or register at www.volunteermatch.org. As one wildlife rehabber once put it, “Every single human being who walks through our door with a broken, bleeding, orphaned, terrified, and often mis-identified wild creature has come there out of love.” And…chances are that she will become our newest volunteer!
Rockford Register Star file photo from 2005
Karen Herdklotz takes a look at an owl used for educational purposes at her business Hoo Haven, a rehabilitation and education center located in Durand.
