What is Wildlife Rehabilitation Protein Network?!
"So you're doing wildlife rescue now?!?," you may wonder. NOPE. We are not. But we are providing mealworms to those who do.
I prefer to explain all things through stories. So, first, some backstory:
So, a while back, for a variety of reasons we'll discuss as time wears on, we decided to open up a circular economy mealworm protein business. It basically goes like this: we grow the worms as protein sources for people who care for critters; we use the frass (worm poop) to develop our soil here on the small farm; we grow organic flowers and food on our red clay dirt that has now been made fertile with frass.
Early on we reached out to a few wildlife rescues to let them know we were a new company and very interested in working with them. We quickly learned that these rescues, like almost all donation-based non profits, are on small budgets, strapped for time, overworked.... and always in need of mealworms!
As someone who has worked in non profit for years, I know those struggles. I also knew that we're a small start up. And we simply aren't in a place to give away mealworms. We started thinking....how could we use the skills we had to get mealworms to the rescues while also staying financially afloat?!
We put our heads together and realized we had two strengths we could bring to the table: Bryan's excellent graphic design skills and Meredith's background in nonprofit trouble shooting. So we came up with a plan to make our mealworms easy to buy and ship straight to the rescues who need them most! Embedded in the plan is easy to use graphics for the rescue centers and a structure for making sure each donor is thanked for their gift!
Here is the breakdown of how it works:
1. A wildlife rescue signs up with us and lets us know about how many mealworms they need a year.
2. We add them to our network of wildlife rehab centers and create them some fun graphics to share with their supporters!
3. Their supporters can then buy mealworms directly from us and we ship those mealworms straight to the wildlife rescue.
4. The person who is buying mealworms for the rescue receives a thank yard card for their gift!
That's it! That's the network! This allows regular people to support wildlife rescues by getting them a steady supply of mealworms and this allows us, a tiny farm and small business (with owners who have experience in graphic design and non profit troubleshooting), to sell our products to would be buyers!
You can support the network today by signing up here if you're a rescue.
You can sign up here to order mealworms to be shipped to the rescues in our network!
