A 10-minute Zoom appearance costs CAN $ 75 (US $ 55).
Uxbridge, Canada:
The coronavirus pandemic has led millions of people to adopt meetings via Zoom, but it is true that these can be as tedious as face-to-face conferences.
For example, an animal shelter in Canada, which was in desperate need of money after being forced to close its doors to visitors, found a way to resolve both problems.
Meet Buckwheat, a donkey at Farmhouse Garden Animal Home, who is ready to add fun to your homework day – for a price.
“Hello. We are planting your meeting, we are planting your meeting – it’s buckwheat,” said Tim Fors, sanctuary volunteer, presenting the gray and white animal during a Zoom call.
In the video application signature window panes, call participants offer oohs and aahs when they realize what’s going on – then laugh.
“Buckwheat crashes people’s meetings to earn money,” Fors told AFP.
“They donate to the sanctuary when they want it to crush a meeting, so it’s mostly a fundraiser so we can feed the cows, especially during COVID.”
Farmhouse Garden Animal in Uxbridge, about an hour’s drive northeast of Toronto, relied on donations from visitors and on-site paid activities to make ends meet.
But since the pandemic broke out in mid-March, the old cattle farm can no longer accommodate foreigners, which has seriously damaged its finances.
Big money for 10 minutes
“About four years ago, Mike Lanigan, who is the breeder here – he’s a third generation cattle breeder – he changed his mind and decided not to send his cows for slaughter anymore,” says Fors.
The animal sanctuary was born: it now houses around twenty cows, chickens, ducks, a horse and Buckwheat, the female donkey born 12 years ago.
With the pandemic threatening the sanctuary’s survival, its leaders quickly realized that they had to identify other ways of bringing in money.
They used Zoom calls themselves to work – and this is how the idea of involving animals in professional calls was born to lighten the mood.
On the sanctuary’s website, interested parties can fill out a form to hire buckwheat, Melody the horse or Victoria, which Fors calls the “matriarch of the herd.”
A 10-minute Zoom appearance costs CAN $ 75 (US $ 55). For double the time, the price reaches $ 125 CDN and $ 175 for 30 minutes, sanctuary co-founder Edith Barabash told Toronto Life magazine.
“We are always happy when those present at the meeting are surprised,” said Fors.
“We started around the end of April, and I think we held about 100 meetings and sometimes we crash three or four times a day.”
During a call, Fors tells participants that he hopes they will visit the sanctuary after the lockdowns are lifted.
“Certainly,” said one of them.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
