My Nonprofit Reviews

Both my husband and I are proud to support this excellent parrot rescue and sanctuary since June 2018. We are volunteers, donors and clients. I am also proud to be a Board member of this organization. The parrots who come to EAST know compassion, care and love. Kim Hannah, founder, gives these birds (often from terrible circumstances) a safe place to land, where they receive the best medical care, nutrition and hands-on time. Additionally, EAST has some of the best volunteers I've ever seen: experienced and reliable. Everyone involved with this sanctuary maintains the highest of ethics. My husband and I have created a future Lifetime Care and will for our macaw should we die or become incapacitated before our parrot passes. We feel really good knowing he will have continuing care as good as we ourselves provide to him.

The founder and Executive Director of EAST, Kim Hannah, has dedicated her life to giving the best lives possible to unwanted or surrendered parrots. She lives on the property with them and along with the amazing volunteer team at EAST, make sure these parrots have the best nutrition, avian veterinarian care possible, enrichment and companionship with both an avian flock or humans. I am proud to be a Board member, a donor, a supporter and a volunteer for this great non-profit parrot rescue and sanctuary.

My husband and I have happily volunteered with, and donated to, EAST for four years now. It ranks among the top sanctuaries in the United States in terms of quality care for rescued and lifetime care parrots. I can't say enough good things about Kim Hannah, founder, president and Executive Director of EAST. The organization is ethical in every way, transparent with its operations, and provides the most excellent care and enrichment for any parrot lucky enough to land there. The volunteers at EAST are exceptional and love the parrots there. When the time comes, we've entrusted the care of our beloved macaw, Crackers, with EAST. In the meantime, she loves visiting the flock and volunteers. :-)

I have been involved with this amazing parrot rescue and sanctuary for three years now. After years of research, EAST is the place my husband and I have chosen for our sweet blue & gold macaw to land once we've gone. We are clients, volunteers, donors and proud supporters. Kim Hannah, founder and Executive Director, is kind, smart, ethical and honest. She is connected with, and shares information with the best rescues in the country. She supports conservation. And when it comes to parrots who need a home and care, she is absolutely selfless. We are excited to be a part of EAST's future, and to help it grow.

My husband and I are thrilled with every aspect of this young parrot rescue and lifetime care organization–from the obvious love and caring of these parrots who need a home, to the honesty, transparency, and ethics of the founder Kim Hannah and her staff and I am proud to serve as a Board member and volunteer at EAST. We are happy beyond words to have found this great sanctuary so near our home, that we can help through donations and volunteering, and that will someday provide a forever home for our sweet girl Crackers.

My husband and I are thrilled with every aspect of this young parrot rescue and lifetime care organization–from the obvious love and caring of these parrots who need a home, to the honesty, transparency, and ethics of the founder Kim Hannah and her staff. We are happy beyond words to have found this great sanctuary so near our home, that we can help through donations and volunteering, and that will someday provide a forever home for our sweet girl Crackers. Here is our story:

Our giving journey began with Crackers. Crackers happens to be our smart, funny and affectionate blue and gold macaw. And, she is the love of our lives. This is the story of how Crackers pivoted our lives into a completely different direction – a direction we had never previously considered – into the world of supporting nonprofit parrot rescue and sanctuary organizations. We have become activists for this critical need and support the growth of parrot sanctuaries by donating, volunteering and fundraising. We found our direction to “give back” all because of that little blue and gold macaw that won our hearts many years ago.

My husband and I adopted Crackers when she was four years old. She is now 25. A macaws’ life expectancy is 70-80 years, and Crackers will likely outlive us by 30 years or more. But Crackers has a condition known as “obsessive compulsive plucking disorder” and requires special care and attention. Even with all her positive attributes, she will be hard to place someday with another family because of her special needs requirements. Most will not see her true beauty or get to know her great personality because of her plucked little body. And, we did not want to risk her going from home to home for the remainder of her long life. A “forever home” sanctuary with lifetime care became our goal for her.

We began the search for a forever home for Crackers for when the time comes that we are no longer able to care for her, or are not here to care for her. While realizing that finding the perfect home for Crackers wouldn’t be easy, we had no idea – absolutely none – how difficult it would be to find a sanctuary that could take her at all. While researching parrot sanctuaries, we discovered, to our dismay, that the need for space in sanctuaries – for both rescues and for lifetime care – is overwhelming: not only are sanctuaries scarce, we found the ones that do exist are understaffed, underfunded, overflowing with birds, and with long lists for birds waiting to be placed.

Parrots are extremely intelligent and social animals, and for the first time are being euthanized because there are so many in the system who are unwanted or abandoned Many are neglected or abused and need rescue. Many, like Crackers, will outlive their human family and need a lifetime care plan at a sanctuary. Thousands of parrots need a home and care. We know we are unable to fix this problem completely, but our goal is that someday, through education, people will no more think that a creature fortunate enough to have wings to fly should be locked in a cage than they now would think of littering the environment by throwing trash out of their cars.

There is a line from “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry where the Little Prince has a long conversation with a fox, regarding the taming of a wild animal, which goes: “Men have forgotten this truth,” said the fox. “But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.” And that truth is our lesson, and inspires our lifes’ work, with little Crackers leading the way.