Wildlife Waystation Founder Martine Colette receives Hero Goody Award Tag

Congratulations Martine Colette, Founder of Wildlife Waystation, on your Hero Goody Award Tag. She was tagged as a global citizen for making a BIG difference by Kelly Mayer for her 50 years of dedication to building an exotic animal sanctuary that is located in the Angeles National Forest, just north of the San Fernando Valley in California.

The Wildlife Waystation was the first exotic animal sanctuary established in the US in 1965. Her national non-profit 501(c)(3) sanctuary is dedicated to holding, rehabilitation, medical and problem solving refuge for native, wild and exotic animals.

Born in France as the daughter of a Belgian diplomat, Martine often took safaris as a child with her father, where they would observe wild animals.

To honor Martine Colette @WWaystation, we received this tribute letter from @Krmayer27:

I am “tagging” Martine Colette, Founder and Director of the Wildlife Waystation Animal Sanctuary as a “Global Citizen” for dedicating her life to helping and saving wild and exotic animals.

I only recently learned of The Wildlife Waystation and Martine Colette due to a post on social media by Actress/Singer, Nikki Reed, who has been visiting the sanctuary for years. I LOVE wild animals (my favorites are elephants and tigers). I have so much respect and admiration for people who take the time to help wild and exotic animals because these animals require a lot of patience, understanding and compassion.

Who is Martine Colette? She’s a HERO!

Martine found her life’s “calling” as a child while traveling to third world countries with her father. She taught herself about medical treatments while visiting villages that needed help with ill animals. She comments, “There’s nothing quite like the feeling you get after helping a sick, defenseless animal.”

In addition to medical treatment, Martine also studied and learned animal behavioral patterns that helped her to deal with large and dangerous predators.

The Wildlife Waystation (the name is from the old west meaning “to rest and refuel”) is a 160-acre facility that houses 400+ animals. Since it opened in 1976, the facility has helped MORE than 75,000 wild and exotic animals from all over the world!  WOW! That’s INCREDIBLE!

If it wasn’t for Martine’s CHOICE to follow her heart and decide to HELP these animals and open up the Wildlife Waystation, all of those animals would have perished. You would think running a large facility and overseeing a large staff and volunteers would take up all her time right? NOPE. In addition to her duties at the station, she is the designated wild animal expert for the city of Los Angeles, CA!

In order to continue to educate the public and allow visitors to get up close with the animals, the Wildlife Waystation has started a Indiegogo campaign fundraiser. You can also learn MORE about this animal sanctuary and even sponsor one (or more) of the animals there by visiting http://wildlifewaystation.org/.

I can’t thank Martine enough for following her heart and dreams.  She is making the world a better place to live, by educating others about these majestic creatures and showing the world that with compassion in our hearts and a passion to help those in need… we CAN co-exist peacefully!

Sincerely,

Kelly Mayer

Wow, thank you Martine Colette, and thank you Kelly for continuing to bring these inspirational stories to us through your “Mission Recognition” program.

If you’d like to recognize your hero, purchase a Hero Goody Award Tag, and then send us the story to post on the Goody Awards blog. We donate 50% of the profits to Free The Children, who empowers youth to change the world. You will also receive 2 for the price of 1 to support our Pay Good Forward program.

(c) Goody Awards 2015