It is amazing how one disgruntled person, who asked for a return of his donation over two months after donating and who was immediately given his refund despite our not being legally obligated to do so can do so much harm. We are trying to figure out what the state has done with our paperwork as we have paid out a great deal of money to get our 501(c) 3 status completed. While this is not necessary to be a non profit it does give our donors the ability to write off their donations on their taxes. We actually do not make enough to require this for any other reason. This same person was able to accomplish what we could not do despite many months of pleading with various entities to do. We had a different story we wanted them to address. They managed to secure a TV station to attack us prior to contacting us and asking for our verification of the facts and our side of the story. Upon arriving home tonight I was met with a TV reporter and a cameraman who had a very bright light he shone in my eyes. The began asking questions rapidly and asking for paperwork and documentation of things I was not even aware of. We had returned Disgruntled Donors money several weeks ago and thought that would be the end of things. They also asked some questions based on partial truths told them by our local shelter which again was far from the entire truth. The photo on our page the person referred to was on our Facebook page and was a cross post as many rescues and shelters do for each other. We always include the information of the original poster so that they can receive the help they are looking for. We post our rescued animals and adopted animals on our website. The sick/injured cat that we were accused of denying care to was a very wild feral kitty who we were giving what care he would allow. He was receiving antibiotics in wet food and that took some doing to get him to accept that. We had tried to trap him several times, but he was very wild and old enough to not trust people at all. We were trying to get him tame enough to eventually get him to the veterinary for care. After the local shelter demanding we trap/ catch him immediately he was sacred enough to not eat the food with the antibiotics and to pretty much disappear into the nearby fields where he had come from. This is the kitty I was fined for denying care to. There is more to the story, but that is a summation of the facts that the animal shelter person was referring to.
As I told the reporter if they wanted to sit down with me off camera first I would present all of the answers to his rapid fire questions. In a meeting scheduled at a reasonable time so I could be prepared to present documentation for whatever he was asking. I said this on camera, but it did not get into their story. For the record I am Asperger's / Autistic and could never do a surprise interview no matter what the topic and to have someone walk up to me at my truck and stick a microphone in my face along with a camera was beyond terrifying. Then add in rapid fire questions without any knowledge of what they would be so I could answer them was impossible to deal with.
So, folks, that is the rest of the story. Will post more when we figure out what the state did with their paperwork with regard to our application and such.
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