Monkey's Animal Friends Fund

I first had the idea for Monkey's Animal Friends Fund (MAFF) as early as June 2007. It all began with a friend's email. This friend of mine in Philippines has been asking friends and family to plant a tree for every birthday that she had since the age of 10!

Likewise, I was inspired to celebrate my 26th birthday through celebrating a worthy cause instead of asking for birthday presents this year. In fact, I will be giving up the purchase of a new phone - and instead donating the cost of the phone to the monkey animal friends fund. I've been tempted to buy a Nokia N-Series for the longest time but I'm pledging instead to donate the cost of a phone to the fund.

Think of it as a birthday gift to me or simply contributing to a good cause!

In June, I sent this message to all my friends:

"This year my birthday, instead of asking for gifts for myself, I am asking my friends to pledge to the Monkey's Animal Friends Fund which will donate to ACRES towards the building of a monkey enclosure at their wildlife rescue center. My target is $6000 and will end on my birthday 14 Nov 2007.

You could pledge any of the following:
1) Pledge a sum of your choice
2) Pledge to save $0.50 or $1 everyday till November 14
3) Pledge my age ($26) or double my age ($52)
4) Pledge the meaning of life ($42)"

All the money will go towards Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres)'s Wildlife Rescue Centre. The Acres Wildlife Rescue Centre (AWRC) is almost complete and is slated to open in the middle of next month. But it is still in dire need of funds.

"The centre has raised $627,000 since October last year and needs another $460,000 to cover operations costs. But while donations from the public, which has donated 46 per cent of the money raised so far, corporations have not been as forthcoming, contributing to about 25 per cent."

Excerpt from "Little help for our wild friends"
By Sheralyn Tay
TODAY, 27 September 2007

Read more about the AWRC here.


AWRC at night

At the moment, I have collected pledges amounting to SGD$1116.50, with about $300 already collected. Of course that is a little to go a long way but I am hoping to raise enough to sponsor a monkey enclosure. The little teary monkey above was drawn by me to be the mascot of MAFF. He represent all the smuggled and now homeless monkey, unable to return to their homeland, and possibly having to be put to sleep if not for places like the AWRC. Please put a smile on his face and contribute to the MAFF!

Of course it is partly also because I am a monkey and it would be rather quaint for the monkey to help other monkeys. Best of all, I am hoping that on my birthday, we can all go down to ACRES and help paint or work on an enclosure with them in addition to just giving them the money so we would all feel like we have a stake in helping the animals.


Adorable monkeys drawn by students at the AWRC

To find out more about ACRES, visit their website www.acres.org.sg

To contribute to the MAFF, email me at isid0rette at yahoo dot com or leave me your contact information in the comments section of this post. ACRES is a registered charity and all donations are tax deductible! Let me know if you need a receipt.

If you prefer to donate directly to ACRES, please go ahead but do drop me a note so I know you've thought of monkey :)

Thank you!