During July 2007, the Girl Guides of British Columbia held a huge "jamboree" of over 2,500 intrepid campers and leaders near Parksville on Vancouver Island. As part of their week's activities, the girls chose a variety of service projects. The World Parrot Refuge was honoured to receive teams of approximately 25 Guides each morning and afternoon for four days.

These adventuresome young women helped us in many ways -- doing the kinds of things that just keep getting put off while we attend to the more pressing matters of caring for over 600 parrots.

It wasn't all work though... we made sure everyone had some quality time with the parrots!

This video is sent out as a big THANKS to all the SOAR 2007 Guides:

Some of the tasks the Guides accomplished for us: washed all the outside and many of the inside windows; washed endless loads of dishes; washed, dried and folded laundry; hauled heavy Arbutus branches from the front of the building to a storage pile for use in future habitat perches; weeded the walkways; painted the outside benches; cleaned out the storage shed where donated toys and stuffies are kept until we can process them; made never-ending strings of toys for our birds (who LOVE to chew on them!); donated Toonie Toys as personal gifts to some of the birds (did you see Miss Daisy giving her new teddy a drink of water?); and most of all, the Guides met, enjoyed and respected the wonderful residents of the World Parrot Refuge.

Thanks again!

Please click on the thumbnails below to learn how you can help some special birds have a home for life through our "Virtual Adoption" program! More stories coming soon!

Birds who are now partly sponsored, thank you!

Birds who are now fully sponsored, thank you!

"This is, in a word, a great place and these miraculous creatures deserve no less, but few places can deliver it this well. It is, indeed, 'world class'."

– Stewart Metz (author and Director of the Indonesian Parrot Project), after his visit at the Grand Opening of the Refuge on August 13, 2005.

"The World Parrot Refuge is a true sanctuary where parrots live out their lives in a loving, spacious and happy environment under the guidance of extraordinarily caring people. The many visitors destined to pass through the refuge will come to understand that parrots are not toys or trophies, but beings with needs and emotions as real as our own."

– Rosemary Low (author of more than 30 books on parrots)