We wish to thank all of our supporters who make it possible to rescue and care for so many animals every year either through financial contributions or by donating services, goods or their time.

Special thanks to all ORA volunteers, the faces of the people who make ORA what it is:

Claudia Vecchio
ORA Founder

Claudia Vecchio was born and raised in Milan (Italy). After completing her postgraduate degree in Political Science, majoring in International Law, at the University of Milan, she moved to Brussels where she undertook further postgraduate courses on Law of the European Union. She worked at the Press and Information Department of The EEC and in 1980 she came to Canada.

After a short period of teaching at York University, she went into Real Estate: her motto is “finding homes for animals and people”. She is still juggling her real estate profession with the management of ORA and the care of the many cats under her direct care.

Since her childhood, Claudia has shown a great love and compassion for all animals and a particular attraction to cats. She has rescued stray and abandoned cats on her own for over 25 years. In 2002, she realized that she could no longer carry out these massive rescue efforts by herself. She decided, with Corinne Thaw, to found ORA-Organization for the Rescue of Animals - a rescue organization that obtained charitable status in November 2002.

Claudia speaks several languages fluently, but finds the biggest challenge comes from interpreting the non-verbal communication of cats.

Claudia’s dream is to create wildlife sanctuaries throughout Southern Ontario - oases where wildlife, endangered by urban sprawl, may find quiet and peaceful areas in which to live undisturbed. She hopes to realize this objective through the donation of land by private landowners. Landowners who wish to ensure that their land will be protected against logging and hunting can donate the land to ORA while retaining right of use during their lifetime while enjoying considerable tax benefits.

 

Corinne Thaw
Volunteer Fundraiser

Corinne Thaw was born and raised in Toronto. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Toronto. She has rescued animals since her early childhood, bringing home and caring for many injured and sick animals. Corinne has been involved with Claudia in cat rescue for many years even before the creation of ORA. After ORA was founded, she decided to take one year off from her real estate management business and undertook post-graduate studies at Humber College in Fundraising and Volunteer Management, graduating with honors. She couples her full time job in property management with a second career as a volunteer fundraiser for ORA. Fundraising for a small animal organization is a very difficult and exhausting struggle.

Corinne’s favorite pastime is walking in the York regional forest with her three dogs and any other dogs she may be fostering at the time. She enjoys the solitude and peace of the forest and the happiness of the dogs running and playing. Corinne has also shown a great and instinctive ability in dealing with rescued dogs, helping them to overcome the trauma of abandonment and to feel comfortable and loved.

Courtney McNamara
Volunteer Events & Sponsorship

Courtney graduated from York University with a B.F.A. in 2003, and is one of the founding members of Shadowpath Theatre Productions, a non-profit theatre troupe, where she performed, directed and fundraised! Following that she received a grant to pursue a Certificate in Extensive Makeup design, which landed her a freelance position teaching SFX makeup to theatre students at Sheridan College. She spent over ten seasons working for Paramount Canada’s Wonderland in the Entertainment department, where she gained experience in the Event planning field. Now residing in Toronto, Courtney works full-time for an International magazine and spends most of her free-time to enhance the lives of stray and homeless animals. She hopes to combine her experience in the Arts with her love of animals in an upcoming educational theatre production which will teach children about pet responsibility, over-population and our valuable wildlife.

Erica Chang
Volunteer Graphic Designer

Erica came to Toronto from her native Taiwan a few years ago and she studied multimedia at Humber College. Currently she is very busy with her work as a wedding videographer, graphic designer and photographer. However, Erica always finds the time to volunteer for ORA and to fulfil with great professionalism and punctuality any assignment she receives from ORA, even on last minute notice. Erica has designed a large number of posters for ORA, and all the materials for the "sterlize don' t euthanize" campaign, showing great talent and originality.

Erica is very fond of animals and in particular of dogs. She is the proud owner of a small dog, called Nookie. In her free time, Erica is a dedicated hard-core skateboarder and a punk rocker, she's also involved with Uprising Book Store (a non-profit radical space: www.uprising.ca). Some of her work can be found at: www.erica.unikmedia.net

Sasha (Alexandra) Gousseva
Volunteer Webmaster

Sasha was born in Moscow, Russia and lived in various places around the world before settling in Toronto in 1996. She recently completed a Bachelor of Arts Degree at the University of Toronto and will be continuing her studies at a graduate level in law in the next few years. In addition to volunteering for ORA, Sasha works full-time in IT and handles a number of projects in her free time (translation services; editing an academic journal; managing various websites; creative business consulting services, etc.).

Sasha is a proud mother of two cats, Blessy and Spooky, and would love to extend her home to a dog one day.