Interview: Caroline Ross – Founder of Eleven Eleven Animal Rescue
What this organization does is rescue animals from being euthanized (sometimes minutes before) and re-rehabilitate and re-home them. Starting just last year in August, they have already been enjoying immense success and awareness. They saved many animals and have supporting veterinarians behind them.
All of this is extraordinary but none of this would have happened without the incredible Caroline Ross, who founded and runs the organization. What’s even more impressive is that she is only 20 years old, goes to school full time and works two jobs at two different veterinarian clinics. For obvious reason, we had to talk to her and find out more about her story. So here is our interview with Caroline Ross, founder of Eleven Eleven Animal Rescue.
Meet You At The Show: So first off, where did you get the idea to start an animal rescue organization?
Caroline Ross: I started rescuing when I was 7 when I lived in the Cayman Islands with my mother. We started with wildlife, we started the first wildlife rehab center there. Through that I started volunteering in vet clinics and I kind of saved the animals here and there as they came in until I moved here and I started going to animal health, working in vet clinics still. This summer I guess it just happened. When I started saving one after the other, people started realizing that I do this and started to surrender animals to me, more adoptions came, more surrenders came, before I knew it, it was a full fledged organization.Through my schooling and education I have a lot of friends who are technicians and vets so I had just the right set up to make this what it is so it all kind of fell together.
MYATS: How long has Eleven Eleven been going?
CR: Well I’ve been doing this for over 10 years but we launched the actual organization in August.
MYATS: What were you doing before this?
CR: Up until the organization I’ve been a vet technician in two different vet clinics. I work at one clinic downtown and one way out in the country where I get most of my rescue animals from.
MYATS: What is your long-term goal?
CR: Well I put this together for harder to place animals. I knew I had the right network and set up for it so I realized I could help animals that would otherwise not get help. My goal is to reach as many animals as I can while providing a good quality of care for them as well as the healthy animals who would otherwise be euthanized.
MYATS: How would you say your progress has been since you’ve started?
CR: It has absolutely taken off a lot faster than I could ever have imagined it to. I never expected it to get to this point. It’s gotten huge and we’ve saved a lot of animals and we’re growing, I mean everyday we grow bigger.
MYATS: What methods do you use to get yourself heard?
CR: Well one of the things that sets aside from the other rescues I’d say is that we have the Twitter and Facebook account which has a huge fan base. We also have the blog that has special news about each animal that people can follow. With Facebook they’re getting minute to minute, day to day updates.
MYATS: Have Facebook and Twitter been helping? Have they been going well?
CR: We’ve definitely developed a lot of fans who keep coming back. Twitter has actually been pretty neat because we got nominated through Twitter by Montreal Critters who is one of our sponsors for the Santa Clause Drive for Christmas and we ended up getting $700 and a bunch of toys donated towards our rescue for the animals. We were one of 6 rescues chosen around the world.
MYATS: How many animals have you rescued until today?
CR: I haven’t sat down and counted but I would say over 50. We don’t just do cats or dogs, I would definitely say over 50, that’s something I haven’t had a chance or moment to sit down and count yet. Even if my animals aren’t being adopted, a lot of times we do sponsorships for animals since we’ve started which has been kind of unique to our rescue, we’ve helped raise money for people who own pets that..For instance, right now we have this dog named Rocco who’s owned by this homeless person and he’s on welfare and can afford his apartment and he’s in a good situation now but his dog tore his cruciate ligament which is a $3000 surgery. This dog has been with him through thick and thin, it’s been the only family he’s known his entire life and we’re helping him raise money for the surgery. We got the DMV who’s going to do the surgery to take $1000 off the cost. We got Walkin Wheels (the wheel chair company for dogs) to donate to him.
MYATS: Any role models or inspirations that made you want to do this?
CR: Well my mom has always been there with me. I never looked up to a rescue group and said ‘I want to do what they’re doing.’ It was something I had already done and I knew I could do pretty well and it just kind of happened really.
MYATS: Are you currently doing any other projects?
CR: I’m studying to be a vet tech in school, this is my last semester. I also work two jobs, so I work full time and I go to school full time.
MYATS: Lastly, do you have any pets? What kind?
CR: Yes, I have a chihuahua and a cat. A lot of people think I’m this crazy cat lady with eight cats at home. I have a cat and a dog and I also foster every so often and usually keep one of my fosters.
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There you have it! A fascinating interview with a fascinating person. We’d like to take the time to thank Caroline Ross once again for taking the time to speak to us and share her story. We wish her the best of luck with her rescue organization but from the looks of it, she has a bright future ahead of her with or without luck.
Be sure to head out this Friday, January 22nd to La Sala Rossa, to not only witness a great night of live music from some incredible artists, but also support this most worthy of causes.
Interview Conducted by Eran Dahan
