🚨 BIG GIVING DAY UPDATE: YOUR DONATION CAN NOW GO TWICE AS FAR! 🚨
We have some incredible news to share.
A generous donor has stepped forward with a $2,000 MATCHING GIFT for RIPR’s 10th Annual Giving Day campaign! That means every dollar donated toward our 117 Emergency Vet Fund will be matched dollar-for-dollar, up to $2,000.
💙 Give $25 — it becomes $50.
💙 Give $50 — it becomes $100.
💙 Give $117 — it becomes $234.
💙 Give $500 — it becomes $1,000.
If our community unlocks the entire match, $2,000 in donations becomes $4,000 for parrots who may need us without warning.
And that is exactly why this campaign matters.
In 2016, 117 parrots from Weston, Connecticut needed us. In 2023, 21 birds from Massachusetts needed us. In May 2025, another 16 birds in New Hampshire needed help. Then came the NH74 rescue in 2026.
The calls never stopped.
We never know whether the next emergency will involve one bird, ten birds, or another overwhelming large-scale rescue. What we do know is that when that call comes, there is no time to begin figuring out how to pay for veterinary care, transportation, medications, quarantine, food, housing, and rehabilitation.
We need to be ready before the phone rings.
Our goal for this year’s campaign is $11,000, and this matching opportunity could move us a HUGE step closer.
If you have been thinking about giving, this is the moment. Your gift will have twice the power and help build the financial safety net that allows Rhode Island Parrot Rescue to keep saying YES when parrots desperately need somewhere to turn.
117 Lives Changed Everything.
The Calls Never Stopped.
And right now, your gift can be DOUBLED.
Help us unlock the full $2,000 match and turn it into $4,000 of lifesaving support.
RIPR 10th Annual Giving Day
September 16, 2026
Goal: $11,000
The 117 Emergency Vet Fund
The Day That Changed Our Rescue Forever
September 16, 2016.
There are days in the life of an organization that become a dividing line between before and after.
For Rhode Island Parrot Rescue, this was that day.
The afternoon before, police in Weston, Connecticut had been called to a home after neighbors reported an overwhelming odor coming from the property. What responding officers discovered was so severe that the air inside forced them back out. Entering the house required respirators, and firefighters, hazardous-material personnel, veterinarians, animal control officials and other agencies were eventually brought in to help.
On September 16, Rhode Island Parrot Rescue arrived.
Nothing could have prepared us for what was behind those doors.
Birds and reptiles were everywhere—some alive, some already gone. Parrots were living in filthy, insect-infested cages, many without adequate food or water. Some were severely malnourished. Some had begun mutilating themselves and plucking their own feathers. Others sat surrounded by months of accumulated waste. Perhaps one of the most haunting things of all was how quiet it was. A property filled with parrots should have been deafening. Instead, many of them had simply stopped making noise.
For approximately twelve exhausting hours, rescuers worked to remove animals from the house and outbuildings. There were so many that a 34-foot horse trailer was needed to transport them. Contemporary reports described volunteers working through the night after the birds reached Rhode Island, urgently asking the community for food, towels, supplies, financial help and even additional heated space.
Ultimately, 117 parrots from Weston became part of Rhode Island Parrot Rescue's story.
And they changed us forever.
Those birds did not simply need to be removed from a terrible place. Rescue was only the first step. They needed veterinary examinations, diagnostics, medications, appropriate nutrition, quarantine, clean housing and months of rehabilitation. RIPR ultimately spent more than $20,000 on veterinary care alone. Ninety-nine of those birds survived, and it took five years before the last of the Weston birds was finally placed.
At the time, we could not possibly have understood how much September 16 would shape the organization we would become.
We learned what it meant to mobilize when there was no time to prepare.
We learned what happens when dozens—or more than one hundred—living beings suddenly depend on you.
And we learned something that has proven true over and over again during the decade since:
There is always another call.
In 2023, 21 birds from Massachusetts needed us.
In May 2025, 16 birds in New Hampshire needed us.
And earlier this year, another New Hampshire emergency involved 74 parrots.
Different year. Different property. Different birds.
The same question:
Can you help?
And every time we say yes, the rescue itself is only the beginning.
The photographs may show the day the birds were removed, but they do not show the weeks of medication that follow. They do not show the veterinary bills, quarantine supplies, special diets, transportation costs, hours of cleaning, staff time, sleepless nights, or the months of rehabilitation required before some of these birds are finally healthy enough to begin again.
That is why this year's Annual Giving Day means so much to us.
On September 16, 2026, exactly ten years after the rescue that changed RIPR forever, we will hold our 11th Annual Giving Day with a goal of raising $11,000 for The 117 Emergency Vet Fund.
This is not a fund for something that happened ten years ago.
It is a fund for whatever happens next.
We cannot tell you what town the next call will come from.
We cannot tell you whether there will be one bird, 16 birds, 74 birds—or another 117.
What we can do is make sure Rhode Island Parrot Rescue is ready to answer.
Your support will help provide the transportation, veterinary care, diagnostics, medication, quarantine, emergency housing, nutrition and rehabilitation necessary when parrots suddenly have nowhere else to go.
Ten years ago, 117 parrots needed someone to show up.
We did.
Hundreds of birds later, (128 this year alone) we are still showing up.
And with your help, when the next call comes, we will be ready to say YES again.
117 Lives Changed Everything.
The Calls Never Stopped.
Help Us Be Ready for the Next One.
💙 RIPR 11th Annual Giving Day
September 16, 2026
🎯 Goal: $11,000
🦜 The 117 Emergency Vet Fund