The Claire Foundation Animal Sanctuary

"Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love." -- Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Claire Foundation is a small non-profit whose mission is to continue to serve as a sanctuary for homeless, abandoned, and abused animals, and to provide coaching and mentoring to others who want to do the same. The Foundation cares for and houses 30-50 animals at any given time, on 14 acres in Missouri's Heartland. We are incorporated as a non-profit in the state of Missouri and recognized as a 501c3 charity by the IRS.

We are small as animal sanctuaries go, but we continue to grow as more and more animals are displaced by home foreclosures. We help place animals however we can, and we also provide free coaching and mentoring to help pet owners find a way to keep their animals whenever possible. We also mentor those who want to establish their own small sanctuaries as part of our Claire's Heart Project. Providing small havens of sanctuary is a gift to the world, and blesses the animals and people involved.

Here are some pictures of the grounds of our beautiful little farm, along with our Mission Statement... and you can click on

the links to your left to see pictures of some of our current residents and find other like-minded souls and organizations through our Heart-Links.

The Claire Foundation mission is to provide loving sanctuary and caring to homeless and abandoned animals. We do not adopt or place rescued animals with the public... we provide a loving home and life-long sanctuary to those that come to us. Here is the definitio

n of Sanctuary:

"What separates a sanctuary from other institutions is the philosophy that the residents come first. In a sanctuary, every action is scrutinized for any trace of human benefit at the expense of nonhuman residents. Sanctuaries act on behalf of the animals, and the caregivers work under the notion that all beings within the sanctuary, human and nonhuman, are of equal importance. A sanctuary is not open to the public in the sense of a zoo; that is, the public is not allowed unescorted access to any part of the facility. A sanctuary tries not to allow any activity that would place the animals in an unduly stressful situation. One of the most important missions of sanctuaries, beyond caring for the animals, is educating the public. The ultimate goal of a sanctuary is to change the way that humans think of, and treat, non-human animals" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_sanctuary ).

As we continue to fulfill our mission and increase the number of animals we help live in sanctuary through our Claire's Heart Project, please know that we do this through the loving contributions of donors like you. We hope you are inspired by our website, and the pictures and stories about our residents. The Claire Foundation is committed to the deep ecology of our human/animal connection, and how it can change the world.