Craigavon business Natural Animal Health has recently launched its first calendar to raise money for two animal charities, the Mid Antrim Animal Sanctuary and the St James City Farm in Gloucester.
“You may be wondering why an animal health business has produced a calendar this year. Well so are we!” commented David Willis, the owner of Natural Animal Health. “it is definitely not part of our core business in helping animal owners with natural products to help with their horses, dogs and hens but we really stumbled into calendar production this year.”
Supporting animal charities
For the last few years, Natural Animal Health has produced a small desk calendar for its top customers which reflected images of dogs, hens and horses as well as cattle, sheep and pheasants (via our sister company Natural Farm Health).
“This year, we decided to try something a little different to see if we could actually sell a calendar with all the profits going to an animal charity. We were very aware that with the COVID-19 restrictions, the charitable sector were having a very hard year so we wanted to do something to help a little with this.”
A helping hand from social media
The first step was to find photographs so Natural Animal Health issued a plea for animal and bird photographs on Facebook and Instagram.
“We were overwhelmed with the response, both in quality and quantity. Over 250 photographs arrived in our inbox and we had a really difficult job in selecting only 12 images to use,” explained David.
“We then turned to social media again for suggestions about a charity to support and again our social media followers came up trumps. We also asked all the photographers for their ideas too. As the photos had come from all parts of the British Isles (and even Canada), we selected two animal charities – the Mid Antrim Animal Sanctuary (close to where we are based in Northern Ireland) and the St James City Farm in Gloucester.”
The Mid Antrim Animal Sanctuary
Located in the town of Antrim, the Mid Antrim Animal Sanctuary concentrates its work in animal rehoming, welfare and education. Every year it finds homes for over 650 abandoned or relinquished dogs and cats.
“We are delighted to be receiving support from Natural Animal Health via the profits of their calendar,” commented Janet Hume, the manager at the Mid Antrim Animal Sanctuary. “Even though there was an increased demand for dogs and cats at the start of the coronavirus lockdown, we still have many dogs and cats that are permanent residents with us. Feed costs are one of our major costs and we really appreciate support with this.”
St James City Farm in Gloucester
St James City Farm is a tiny ‘farm’ in the middle of Gloucester’s inner city. It is run as part of a registered charity and the main aim is to give children from the inner city a chance to see and learn about farm animals, pony care and riding. The farm is free to enter and is run by a handful of staff and many volunteers from different backgrounds.
“As you can imagine, there is a hefty food bill for the animals every week and many of our fundraising activities were cancelled this year due to the coronavirus pandemic,” explained Karen Berry, one of the riding coaches at the farm. “The calendar is a fantastic fundraising idea from Natural Animal Health and we were thrilled to be picked as one of their charities.”
How to buy the calendar
The A4 wall calendar is now on sale at the Natural Animal Health online shop https://www.naturalanimalhealth.co.uk/shop/2021-natural-farm-health-calendar . It costs £7.50 (including post and packaging to all UK addresses) but for addresses outside UK, there will be a small additional charge to cover postage.
So if you are looking for a Christmas gift for an animal lover (or for yourself) and want to support animal charities at the same time, then the Natural Animal Health calendar is the answer.