BOO!

Happy Halloween! I hope your October has been the best month of 2020 yet! Although Halloween will probably look a little different this year for most of us, the DPMMR family is hopeful you can have some much needed fun while staying safe.

October at DPMMR has been incredibly busy and productive! Our new floating dock system arrived earlier this month and just this week we replaced our old, antiquated platforms with the new sleek “Accu-dock.” In partnership with Accu-dock and utilizing funds from the Connect to Protect Gala, general donations, and part of a SBA loan, we were able to purchase this much needed addition to the facility.

The new design is gorgeous and so much more functional and safe for our dolphins, trainers, and guests. The new layout gives the trainers more freedom and variability in their training sessions which means our animals are more engaged and enriched!

These docks couldn’t have come at a more perfect time (literally, our annual “King Tide” allowed us to remove the old platforms with ease which wouldn’t have been possible if the tide was even an inch lower!). The new docks are somewhat symbolic of a new chapter in DPMMR’s life… a chapter that is all about change and progress!

Since July, DPMMR has been working with the Schoonover Group, a group of consultants who have donated their services to help our team develop a strategic plan sure to weather the challenges the organization faces (e.g. pandemics, hurricanes, and activism… Oh My!). In October, the group facilitated a “Fall Forward” workshop with the entire DPMMR team. The two-day event allowed the entire team to put our heads together and come up with a roadmap to accomplishing our major goal: building a marine mammal hospital in the Florida Keys. Our team is motivated and ready to expand and develop new programs, design exciting marketing strategies, and make 2021 as successful as possible for our marine mammal conservation efforts. You can read more about this exciting event in the feature article of this month’s newsletter.

To wrap up, we would like to extend our deepest gratitude to the Lillian Lowell Foundation for their recent, generous donation of $10,000.00 towards the medical care of our geriatric dolphins. This incredible donation was much appreciated and will assist us in continuing to provide excellent medical care for our older dolphin females, Dinghy and Jessica.

That’s all for now, my friends. Look out for November’s newsletter around Thanksgiving time! Looking forward to more exciting updates.

Sending much love, light, and hope to each of you…

Nancy Cooper