ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – A warehouse fire on Monday wiped out donations for an Albuquerque non-profit. “What we do is we take and we upcycle soft goods and we donate them to animal shelters, people doing foster work anyone that is caretaking our four-legged or two-legged friends,” said Oliver Rigby Foundation co-founder Terri Dean.
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The Oliver Rigby Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, has been up and running since 2021 helping animal shelters across the land of enchantment. “They are always in need of food, donations of any kind, financial or even the soft goods,” said Dean.
They’ve been able to donate thousands of pounds of towels, blankets, and sheets over the years but on Tuesday, a devastating fire wiped out all of their donations. The fire happened at their warehouse on Menaul near I-25. Albuquerque Fire Rescue said there was a report of a gas leak which soon broke out into a fire taking crews two and a half hours to get under control.
Dean said the building is a total loss. “It’s devastating. We lost absolutely everything, we had a warehouse packed with soft goods that were ready to go we had somebody heading this next week up to Las Vegas,” said Dean.
That trip and many more were canceled until they can replace everything that was burned. “We’re in a scramble, we need warehouse space we will also need more donations. So if people have donations that would be amazing but before we get the donations we need some place to put them,” said Dean.
The fire, a ripple effect, for not only the foundation but for everyone they serve. “This time of year for us, the temperatures start to drop and we’ve done donations as far as Aztec, where the animals are outside because there is simply no room for them in the shelter,” said Dean. “They need the blankets and things more than they do in you know July.”
If you are interested in helping the foundation’s cause, click here.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)