🕊️ Why Marden’s Ark Must Move, and What Comes Next
There are moments in rescue work when life shifts beneath your feet — not because of anything you did wrong, but because the world simply changed around you.
This is one of those moments.
For more than a decade, Marden’s Ark has been a home shaped by love, prayer, resilience, and the steady rhythm of daily care. Birds have come here abandoned, forgotten, displaced or broken and left loved and healed. Families have found support. Our outreach program has grown into a lifeline for people struggling to keep their parrots through hardship. And the refuge itself has become a place where safety is not just a priority — it is a promise.
But this fall, we learned that the property directly beside our refuge – one we’ve offered for years to buy and were told it wouldn’t be sold – has in fact been sold and is about to become a new fire station. At first this was unconfirmed, just something a visitor that we’d just met had mentioned. But this month we discovered it is true. The property now belongs to Youngsville Volunteer Fire Department, Inc. Don’t get me wrong – I am all for supporting first responders and with all the subdivisions popping up all around us, it’s needed.
But it’s not the kind of situation we want for the birds. We don’t want them to be exposed to sirens at all hours, flashes of light at night, and lots more traffic.
It’s not the healing, peaceful environment we’ve tried to maintain.
For over eleven years now, this place has been a refuge. We gave up almost the entire building to birds’ living space and storage for their food, toys, cleaning supplies, and more. We paid the mortgage, taxes and insurance, never asking for a dime in rent from the organization, so that donations,
And so, a chapter we never expected is now before us:
Marden’s Ark must move.
Why We Must Relocate
We want to be transparent about what the fire station project means in practical terms — not just for us, but for the parrots in our care.
🚒 The fire station brings frequent loud disruptions
The calm, mostly quiet rural life they’ve known would become punctuated by:
- sirens
- flashing lights
- diesel engine starts
- trucks entering/exiting at all hours
- bright pulsing nighttime signals
- traffic rerouting
These are not things parrots can “get used to.”
Lights flashing at night for a few seconds as they speed by is one thing. Lights spooling up as several vehicles leave the station is another. We feel it could have a negative impact on their sleep and their sense of safety.
🧭 Long-term sustainability requires long-term stability
Building a sanctuary is like planting a grove — it needs roots.
We have outgrown this property, and the fire station accelerates a transition we were already approaching.
This isn’t just about surviving the next year.
It’s about where Marden’s Ark can thrive for the next twenty.
We need land we can protect.
Quiet surroundings we can count on. Preferably with lots of woods to keep sound away from the birds – and just as important, to keep bird sounds from neighbors who might complain.
Space to build correctly the first time.
A place where we aren’t one rezoning decision away from catastrophe.
The Truth: This Is Big. Really Big.
Relocating an avian facility isn’t like moving a household.
It means relocating:
- dozens of parrots
- flight spaces
- isolation and quarantine rooms
- food prep
- storage
- medical areas
- freezers
- outreach inventory
- supply chains
- environmental controls
- strict cleaning routines
- safety protocols
- and the delicate emotional worlds of birds who depend on consistency
It is a massive undertaking — logistically, physically, and emotionally.
But we would rather walk this mountain now than watch the birds suffer later.
Why This Move Represents Hope
It’s ironic to say, but true:
This disruption may be the best opportunity we’ve had in years.
Moving gives us the chance to:
- build a purpose-designed rescue facility – not an adapted old farmhouse.
- connect flight space for macaws, greys, amazons, conures and the littles
- create a larger outreach center
- design proper storage, food prep, and mixing facility where we can be USDA and state inspected to produce food we can sell to support the organization
- install better ventilation and lighting
- incorporate safety and noise-reduction systems
- build an environment optimized for mental health, not just survival
- secure land that allows for true long-term planning
What felt like an ending is opening into a beginning we never expected — and maybe one God had planned long before we knew we needed it.
How the Community Can Help
If you want to support us, we’re kicking off a fundraiser on Zeffy, a platform that charges NO FEES:
https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/donation-form/mardens-ark-sanctuary-new-beginnings-phase-i-fundraiser
We’re not asking for luxury.
We’re not fundraising for “extras.”
We are trying to do the best we can to provide for and protect the lives entrusted to us.
Your support helps us:
- secure land
- prepare or build a new structure
- relocate the flock safely
- rebuild their habitats
- keep outreach going during the transition
- minimize stress and disruption for the birds
- make the new facility better than anything they’ve ever known
The birds we serve don’t understand property lines or construction plans.
They understand peace.
Safety.
Routine.
The feeling of being cared for.
This move is for them.
This Isn’t the End
It’s the beginning of our next chapter — a chapter built on courage, compassion, and community.
We will keep sharing updates as we move forward, one careful step at a time.
To everyone who has stood with us for years — and to those just joining our family —
thank you for believing in Marden’s Ark.
New beginnings may come with storms, but they also come with light.
And we’re walking toward that light with hope.
🕊️
—Marden’s Ark Avian Refuge