{"id":1712,"date":"2025-11-25T19:09:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T00:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.avianrefuge.org\/?p=1712"},"modified":"2026-04-05T10:54:49","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T15:54:49","slug":"new-beginnings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.avianrefuge.org\/index.php\/2025\/11\/25\/new-beginnings\/","title":{"rendered":"NEW BEGINNINGS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\ud83d\udd4a\ufe0f Why Marden\u2019s Ark Must Move, and What Comes Next<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

There are moments in rescue work when life shifts beneath your feet \u2014 not because of anything you did wrong, but because the world simply changed around you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is one of those moments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more than a decade, Marden\u2019s 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 \u2014 it is a promise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 went ONLY to benefit the birds and we were able to do the most good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so, a chapter we never expected is now before us:
Marden\u2019s Ark must move.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Why We Must Relocate<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We want to be transparent about what the fire station project means in practical terms \u2014 not just for us, but for the parrots in our care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83d\ude92 The fire station brings frequent loud disruptions<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The calm, mostly quiet rural life they’ve known would become punctuated by:<\/p>\n\n\n\n