We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Martha Frassica-Rivera a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have Martha with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?
My mother! We immigrated to the US when I was five, she was recently divorced and fell in love with Homestead and it’s agricultural background. She spoke Spanish and Italian and no English. However she put in the work, and has owned successful businesses, her own homes and raised my sister and I on her own. She is the definition of work ethic and taught me if you want something badly enough, and you put the work in, it will come to you.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I curator a wildlife non profit deep in the heart of South Florida. We also take in unwanted, abandoned or abused exotic animals. We are not county or state funded. The most exciting thing we do is go on rescue calls and save wildlife! We never know what our next call will be. We also work with the community and offer educational programs on how to coexist with the animals that lived here before us. We offer special tours where you get ethical interaction (none of our resident animals are ever forced to do anything they do not want to do) with some of the sentinel beings that call our sanctuary home.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Patience Compassion
The ability to think outside the box
It is easy to become frustrated when an animal is not cooperating but it is imperative to remember what they might be feeling and to think outside the box in how to improve the interaction you are having. My advice is to volunteer at a local rescue that has the animals or species you are interested in working in. Most people think we play with the animals all day, but the reality is most of our work is cleaning, feeding, repairing, educating and a million other things that have nothing to do with playing. That is not to say we do not interact with them, but volunteering is key to developing these three qualities.
Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?
Funding and staff are our biggest challenge. We are currently looking into getting county funding as we respond to calls put through to us by our local information line. Lack of staff because of a lack of funding is also a big issue. We have looked into grants, however, most grants seem to be based for dog/cat rescues and farm animal rescues, not exotic wildlife like our sanctuary. So if there are any grant writers in our area that would like to help, we are welcome to meeting you!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.evergladesoutpost.org
- Instagram: @evergladesoutpost
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@EvergladesOutpost/videos
