OVERVIEW

Heavenly Creatures is a registered charity dedicated to the care and protection of Newfoundland and Labrador’s animals.

It is governed by a board of directors and is run primarily by volunteers – it truly takes a village!

It costs close to $300,000 annually for Heavenly Creatures to operate and the charity receives NO government funding; it exists only because of donations and fundraising efforts.

Veterinary care is always the biggest expense. If you’d like to make a donation, please click here.

HEAVENLY CREATURES’ HISTORY

The organization was founded in 2001 in St. John’s by four friends (Jessica Rendell, Elaine Johnson, Thomas Ozon and Kenn Morgan).

They were concerned about the extremely high amount of euthanasia of healthy animals (and in some cases, sick but very treatable animals) that existed in our province at that time.

Back then, over EIGHTY percent of animals entering shelters and municipal pounds in Newfoundland never got to leave in the arms of loving families.

Instead, these poor animals would leave for one last car ride and it was to the vet – they were tragically headed to be “euthanized” aka killed. This was (and still is) also the case in shelters around the world-the problem was/is not specific to NL.

The four friends were heartsick about how many homeless animals were needlessly losing their lives and knew they had to try to do something about it.

They wanted to provide an alternative to traditional animal sheltering, one that would see the animals taken in kept safe while they waited for their adoptive homes.

They had read about the No-Kill animal sheltering movement that was beginning to sweep the globe and decided that they just had to help bring it to Newfoundland. (For more about No-Kill, please read here.)

As of this writing in 2021, Heavenly Creatures has been in existence for 20 years and in that time it has rescued thousands of homeless animals and sheltered them through its foster program until such time as they were claimed or found new homes.

Heavenly Creatures has also helped thousands more animals through its Pet Food Bank and its low-cost vet bill assistance program.

Heavenly Creatures was the province’s first no-kill group, but over the years has happily become just one of many with a no-kill policy.

We are thrilled to report that these days many shelters/rescue groups in our province do not kill animals unless it can actually be considered true euthanasia (i.e. unless an animal is suffering terribly and is beyond the scope of medical intervention).

Instead, the approach to animal sheltering has generally become a much more progressive one.

Most NL rescue groups now focus on spay/neuter, adoptions and TNR (this stands for Trap, Neuter Return and is a program for wild aka feral cats).

The groups also utilize foster homes and help people keep their pets through low-income assistance programs and pet safekeeping programs (i.e. rather than a person having to give up their pet, animal rescues sometimes shelter an animal for an owner who only needs them temporarily housed in order to be able to keep them).

While society’s attitude toward our furry friends has come a long way, there is still a lot of work to be done and we plan to be here helping animals and the families who love them until there isn’t.