Dear Friends,
We have wonderful news—and an urgent challenge ahead.
In honor of Spirit’s 31st year, a generous donor has offered to match every gift, dollar for dollar, up to $50,000 through Sept. 30.
That means your gift today will go twice as far to help us prepare our sanctuary—and some of our most vulnerable horses—for the winter storms ahead.
Spirit, the beloved stallion who served as the artists’ muse and model for DreamWorks’ Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, is now a senior. Like Spirit, the growing number of older and special-needs horses in our care need greater protection from heavy winds, prolonged rain, and thick mud.
And we need to be ready before the storms arrive.
Here on California’s Central Coast, heavy rain can quickly turn our adobe clay soil into deep, boot-sucking mud. Roads become difficult or impossible to navigate. Flooding and mudslides can threaten our ranch team’s access to hundreds of rescued wild horses and burros who depend on us every day.
We cannot afford to wait for the rain to begin to prepare for what is forecasted to be an unprecedented El Niño hitting us this year.
Right now, our team is working to improve drainage, grade roads, and create dry ground. We need to add more shelters and windbreaks for senior and special-needs horses, improve barns to accommodate more animals during severe weather, and protect hay supplies in areas we can reach even if flooding cuts off vehicle access.
And we need to stock our barns with hay before the storms arrive. During severe weather, suppliers may be unable to load or deliver—and our horses still need to eat every single day.
We have accomplished a great deal, including adding six shelters following last year’s record rains. But we need more—and we have only a few months to get it done.
Today, your generosity can have twice the impact:
Give $50 and it becomes $100.
Give $250 and it becomes $500.
Give $500 and it becomes $1,000.
Give $1,000 and it becomes $2,000.
Donations have been slower this year, but the needs of the horses have not slowed.
Every day, Return to Freedom provides feed, sanctuary, and care for nearly 500 rescued wild horses and burros while continuing our work to protect wild horses and burros on the range, in government holding corrals, and from the slaughter pipeline. Our advocacy team is working in Washington, D.C., every week to create lasting change.
We need you beside us now.
Please make the most generous gift you can before Sept. 30. Every dollar you give will be matched—and every doubled gift will help us protect Spirit and the horses and burros who depend on us through the winter ahead.
Please don’t let this extraordinary $50,000 matching opportunity go unused.
With heartfelt gratitude,
Neda DeMayo
Founder & President
Return to Freedom Wild Horse Conservation