(Photos courtesy of Think Wild)
Towels. So many dirty towels.
Add blankets, sheets, pillowcases, animal bedding, cleaning rags, and more towels, and it becomes clear just how much laundry it takes to operate a wildlife hospital caring for nearly a thousand injured and orphaned native animals each year.
Think Wild’s Wildlife Hospital has cared for more than 3,300 wildlife patients representing over 200 species since opening for patient care in 2020. Every patient needs a clean, sanitary environment while they recover, which means the washing machine and dryer are some of the hardest-working pieces of equipment in the building.
And frankly, they could use some help.
Think Wild needs donations to raise $13,000 to overhaul the Wildlife Hospital’s laundry system with commercial-grade equipment and the electrical, plumbing, ventilation, and room improvements needed to support it.
Wildlife rehabilitation is messy work. Patients arrive with injuries, parasites, mud, blood, formula, food, feces, and any number of other substances that are best left to the imagination. Before a towel or blanket even makes it into the washing machine, staff and volunteers scrape off feces, food, bedding, and other debris by hand. Laundry must also be sorted and kept separate based on disease and biosecurity concerns, including the risk of avian influenza, which means bags of dirty laundry can pile up while waiting for their turn in the wash. With hundreds of patients moving through the hospital each year, cleaning, sorting, washing, drying, and folding load after load takes a significant amount of staff and volunteer time.
The Wildlife Hospital’s current residential-style laundry equipment simply wasn’t designed for this workload. The new system will include two commercial stackable washer/dryer units, allowing the hospital to handle larger volumes of laundry more efficiently. This will reduce the time staff and volunteers spend keeping up with laundry while maintaining the sanitation and disease-prevention standards essential to patient care.
Of course, Think Wild can’t just drop two commercial laundry units into a room and hope for the best. The project also requires electrical work, new ventilation and plumbing supplies, shelving, a utility sink, and other improvements to make the space functional.
The project costs include:
- Two commercial stackable washer/dryer units: $9,400
- Electrical and plumbing supplies, including new vents and water connections: $530
- Laundry room improvements, installation, and equipment transportation: $1,270
- Electrical upgrades, including a new 240V receptacle: $1,800
- Total estimated project cost: $13,000
These improvements will give the Wildlife Hospital a laundry system actually designed to withstand the volume and frequency required in an animal-care facility.
Think Wild is asking the Central Oregon community to help us tackle this decidedly unglamorous, extremely necessary project.
A new laundry system may not be as exciting as releasing a recovered golden eagle or watching an orphaned mammal return to the wild. But behind every successful rehabilitation are hundreds of small, essential tasks that make recovery possible.
And somewhere, under almost every one of those patients, is a dirty towel.
Community members interested in helping Think Wild air out their dirty laundry can donate at the link below or contact molly@thinkwildco.org for information about larger gifts or project sponsorships.
Because wildlife rehabilitation is already a dirty job. Think Wild’s laundry room shouldn’t make it harder.
https://secure.givelively.org/donate/think-wild/think-wild-laundry-system-upgrades
