Ohio animal sanctuary burns days before it is set to open
By Brian Hamrick
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CLERMONT COUNTY, Ohio (WLWT) — A sanctuary for animals that need special care burned to the ground just days before the animals were set to move into their new home.
“It was shocking,” Chanel Rock said. “I’m feeling completely broken. Everything that we have worked our whole lives for is gone.”
Rock is the director of the Sanctuary Ohio Animal Rescue or SOAR. She runs it with her husband Josh Newell.
“We were so close,” Newell said. “We’re almost there, we’re almost there, we’re almost there, and then boom.”
The facility has 12 dogs, four cats, several snakes, horses and about 58 birds. Almost all of them need special care of some sort.
Right now, the animals are at a home that has been turned into a facility near Blanchester. They have two weeks to be out of that facility. Now, the new one they were supposed to move into is gone.
“Where are they all going to go? We are their last stop. We get animals that are going to be euthanized, that are deemed aggressive,” Rock said.
Fire investigators are trying to determine how the fire started. They’re expected to be back at the facility on Thursday.
SOAR has set up a GoFundMe page and they’re hoping for some community support that would help them get something basic like a pole barn.
“There is hope, Rock said. “There’s hope for a new beginning, and I believe in my heart everything happens for a reason, even if it doesn’t look like it right now.”
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