If you’ve visited us at Leigh Farm Park recently, you may have noticed that some of our raptor enclosures are getting on in years – especially the standalone enclosure that used to house Otus, our elderly flightless screech owl. After Otus passed this summer, our Conservation Team knew we’d need to rebuild it before another bird could live there. Luckily, we’ve had extra helping hands on this project from NetApp Serves – including this month's Community Spotlight, Rachel Lithman!
Rachel Lithman grew up here in Durham, NC, and loves that she can call the Bull City home. She works as a technical writer at NetApp, a global data infrastructure company with a branch office in nearby Research Triangle Park.
Luck led Rachel to volunteer with Piedmont Wildlife Center. NetApp’s volunteer program, NetApp Serves, enables their employees to support causes they care about by granting them 40 hours of paid Volunteer Time Off to volunteer with local nonprofits. The company also donates an additional $15 per volunteer hour to the charity of the employee’s choice!
Rachel happened to search NetApp’s volunteer portal for outdoor opportunities at just the right time to find PWC’s call for volunteers to help re-build our screech owl enclosure. As an avid nature lover, Rachel knew this would be a great way to give back to the wildlife she loves. “Nature is so important to me and to all of us,” she says. “I love walking outdoors, gardening, showing my son local wildlife, and just being one with nature.”
Over the last few weeks, Rachel has worked closely with PWC’s Conservation Team and former Executive Director Gail Abrams to tear down our aging enclosure and begin constructing a new one. As of November 15th, the new enclosure is nearly finished! (See pictures of the enclosure in progress below.) Rachel’s favorite part of volunteering with PWC? “My favorite part of volunteering has been working with Noelle, Gail, Kaitlin, Cam, and Briana,” she says, “and learning from you all.”
When Rachel isn’t working at NetApp or volunteering, she enjoys traveling the world, hanging out with her cats Orion and Cleo, and spending time exploring the Earth’s beauty. She is passionate about preserving natural landscapes and wildlife, both in NC and beyond! Her favorite animals are owls, falcons, and big cats of all kinds.
We feel so grateful for the help Rachel and NetApp have given us this fall. Building a new raptor enclosure can be a long and expensive process, costing more than $5,000 in materials and months of physical labor. Volunteers like Rachel allow us to complete this project in a fraction of this time, and NetApp has generously offered to cover the cost of building materials. Their support will directly improve the lives of our Ambassador Animals – and, in turn, allow us to connect even more people with nature in 2024 and beyond!
Thank you again, Rachel, for volunteering to help us with such a huge project. We’re so grateful to have you in our community, and we hope to see you and other NetApp employees back at PWC again in the future!
