Animal champion celebrates by bringing change

A love for animals has inspired a local woman to donate her 75th birthday gift to the Barberton SPCA.

Dagmar Blanker, a retired pharmacist, celebrated her birthday with friends back home in Germany, on January 7. She moved to Barberton in 2002.

The 75-year-old does not always celebrate her birthday, but seeing as this was a milestone, she felt it would be great to celebrate it by making a difference.

She asked her friends not to buy her gifts, and to help the local SPCA instead.

“A friend of mine made the box for me. I then invited my other friends for lunch as part of my birthday celebration when they placed the money inside.

“I had told them in advance that I do not want gifts and they were delighted,” Blanker relates. She gladly shared her plans with her friends, and together they raised

R4 500. “Thirteen of my friends helped me raise this money.”

Blanker was inspired to donate because she knows the local SPCA needs all the help they can get. “I love animals and I know they always need money to keep the place running.”

Her advice to the community is that they must keep the SPCA second-hand shop in mind.

“Donate what you do not need to the shop. They will sell it, then use the money to buy blankets, food, pay the vet and many other things that they need. I always make sure that I donate things I do not need any longer to the SPCA,” said Blanker.

Marlies Liebenberg, secretary of Barberton SPCA and Mpumalanga chairman, said the local branch is touched by this wonderful gesture.

“She put the needs of our many stray and abandoned animals first and had an overseas birthday celebration with no gifts for herself.

“Her German friends were most generous.”To receive the support from total strangers in another country is again proof that the love for and care of animals transgresses all boundaries. We appreciate the effort Blanker put in and the great way her friends responded to her request.

“She is a real animal champion,” said Liebenberg.