I am not a writer and this is not the kind of story people love to read. All I hope for is to be able to tell you , with no prejudice, the story of a fund raiser that was started in order to help one man and his 900+ animals in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
Please understand, I don’t try to justify myself as my counsciousness is clear and I did my best to help hundreds of animals have a better life and most of all I do not want to justify myself in front of these individuals who call themselves “animal lovers and protectors of truth” who fill Facebook pages with their hateful comments, curses, threats and insults. They remind me too much of the Nenderthal mobs which in 2013 were running on the city streets in Romania torturing and killing innocent dogs, with the approval and the blessing of Romanian authorities. No, I don’t want to justify myself only to state facts. I speak for myself and only about things I was involved in and I acquired information about directly with no reference to any hearsay.
In Nov 2015, my husband, a great animal lover who knows I donate monthly to many animal shelters in Romania and worldwide, sent me a newspaper article accompanied by the following words “look, someone needs our help”. It was an article in a newspaper from Cluj that was pleading for volunteers to go and help one man and the 900 dogs in his care. My heart stopped seeing that staggering number of animals and the thought of one man struggling everyday to provide for them made me sick. I took the phone number and that night I called Mr Radu Termure. We spoke for more than an hour and that is how I found out the heartbreaking story of a lonely man struggling to preserve his shelter with almost 1000 animals, shelter located inside an old and decrepit farm. Without hesitation, I pledged my support on a monthly basis and indeed I made the first donation, €100, the next day. I continued to donate every month but didn’t speak to Mr Radu until Mar 2016 when, traveling to Bucharest for personal reasons, I thought I should call him and find out how things are going. Mr Radu told me he was very upset because the farm owners took him to court as they wanted the dogs evicted and the farm used for other purposes. He told me he was planning to buy a piece of land and build a new shelter that would belong to the dogs forever. We are not rich, we have a mortgage and debts to pay on a monthly basis but I told Mr Radu I promise to help with €10,000 for the land, my own money. I said I will not be able to send him the whole amount at once but in installments. He thank me and that is how our phone conversation ended. Two months later I was able to send the first installment for the land purchase and again, a few months later, the second installment, total of about €5,400.
In Sept 2016, my husband sent me another newspaper article from Cluj, stating “Mr Termure animals only have until Dec 31, 2016 to find a new place or will be evicted by force from the current location”… I felt the whole world was tumbling down because no way these poor animals will have a new shelter in just 4 months?? I didn’t know what to do and for a few days I felt useless and pathetic and weak until one day I received a message from a Gofund me campaign and that was a ray of sunshine in all my turmoil as I decided to start a campaign and raise money to buy land for the new shelter. I wrote the story quickly, based on everything I knew by talking to Mr Termure, I used pictures from his facebook page and an hour later my campaign was finished and already shared on Facebook. I was full of hope because I thought how can anyone read that story and not donate… Believe me, there is huge difference between dream and reality… A month later all the money raised was $150 ($50 donated by me and the rest by two good friends in Calgary). It was Oct already and regardless how much I tried to show people I am an honest person and that I would never ever steal the money for the dogs (I never advertise my donations but I started to do that by posting donations receipts and thank you notes only to convince people I am a genuine animal lover and supporter) I did not seem to be able to change general perception of a possible scam. I was not able to sleep anymore and I was unable to come up with something to change everything for the better. Mid-Oct, with a broken heart, I decided to close the campaign as it was obviously going nowhere. That is when my FRIEND Kim from Saskatchewan came into the picture. Many of you would say it is strange to call him friend when I saw him only once in my life, when he brought Skippy, a stray cat from Saskatchewan, to our house in Calgary. Kim drove 12 hours in one day, from his place to Calgary, to bring Skippy to his new home and save him from being euthanized and I believe that tells you EVERYTHING you need to know about him.
Kim contacted me and asked me about Mr Radu and his dogs and next day he was contacting all his friends in Canada and US asking for donations and also sharing the campaign on Facebook. He was the one who gave credibility to this campaign by telling everyone about me and my adopted animals and all of the sudden things changed. Donations started coming in! Kim was the one who one afternoon, beginning of Nov, sent me a message saying someone in town knocked at his door and with tears in her eyes offered $50 for the “dogs in Romania”. This $50 tears filled donation was inspirational! An exceptional woman contacted me and before I knew she made the first large donation ($2000), promised to help more and also gave me lots of advice how to promote my fund raiser (TV, newspapers, radio etc.). Thank you, my dear Light Angel! I was beyond myself with joy and I called Mr Radu asking him to try and negotiate the lease extension because though things were going better, there was not enough time to buy a place and build a shelter in the middle of winter?! Mr Radu told me that is not an option because he was told by a trustworthy person the owners are planning to poison the dogs if they are not off location by Dec 31st… I was desperate again and that was when I saw somebody else started a fund raiser on behalf of Mr Radu and his dogs, her name Alex Maria. I contacted her and we decided to work together, myself, Kim and her, in order to accomplish more. Our daily schedule became very stressful with sleepless nights in front of the computer or on the phone, work in the morning (usually 10 hours every day), get home and start all over. Every evening myself and Alex would have phone conversations, composing letters, discussing options, organizing who is doing what so we could be more efficient etc. We split the North America between the two of us and we sent letters to large charitable organizations and celebrities, TV stations and newspapers, asking not for financial support but help to get more visibility and recognition of this dog shelter in Cluj and the efforts to save over 900 innocent animals. Alex started making T-shirts using pictures from the shelter, short videos she would post literally everywhere. Many of those we approached did not respond, some told us they knew about Mr Radu and his shelter and they tried to help before but he does not cooperate and so they are not wasting time and resources anymore and the very few who seemed to be interested to help were asking a lot of good questions we were never provided with answers, e.g. is there a charity or not, if yes why do donations go in private accounts, what is the monthly budget for shelter maintenance, what is the estimated cost to build a new shelter etc. We were getting closer and closer to Dec 31st and many people were sending me messages asking why are we still asking for donations when it was obvious we didn’t have time to do anything anymore and myself and Alex were trying hard to provide answers and also begging Mr Radu to tell us if there are news so we can continue doing what we were doing. All the time, Mr Radu was telling us why are we so stressed out (keep in mind I am talking mid-Dec) and why are we letting ourselves led by emotions and not mind (how could anyone be rational and not sentimental when they were told the dogs will be poisoned in 2 weeks)?? Finally, Mr Radu told us he was able to extend the lease with 3 months and after awhile with one more month, i.e. until April 2017! Kim, Alex and I were ecstatic! We sent money to pay the rent for 3 months out of the funds we raised and I split with Alex the rent for April. I asked many times for a copy of the rental contract to post it so people can see where the money was used but never got one (“the owners do not allow it”…)
We are now in Jan, when donations level started to go down. Understandably, as everyone was overspending during Christmas break and debts need to be paid. Beginning of Jan, there was $8-9000 in the fund raiser account and together with Alex, we started pleading with Mr Radu to look for a 25,000 sqm piece of land (I promised to get the money if he finds the land) because we also needed time raise money for construction and also start building (from the beginning Mr Radu said he does not want less than 50,000 sqm). We hoped to be able to convince him to start with less and buy more in the future. He was very categorical saying “ I don’t want less, there is not enough money, 5 and 10 euro donations don’t bring much etc.” I told him this money means a lot and I emphasized I will raise the money if the piece of land is found. Alex found a piece of land for sale, 25,000 sqm, asking price €30,000 negotiable and we begged him to go and see it (utilities in the area, access road available).
I sent him construction plans for a modern shelter and told him that if we have 18 sqm/box for each dog, outside and inside design, that totals 18,000 sqm so we are left with 7,000 sqm for auxiliary building (office, shower, rest rooms, small first aid clinic etc.)
The lady from Canada who donated in Dec was willing to top up the amount we raised so we could buy a smaller piece of land but only if I was to go to Romania and be present during the land purchase and make sure the land is bought under the charity name. Sadly, every argument we made failed to convince Mr Radu this was a good start and since then I started hearing comments like “ Mrs Mariana, I never asked for your help, you called me” and “the agreement was this team will raise funds but I am the sole decision maker…” (no Mr Radu, I was not “employed” to raise funds and as long as the funds were raised in my name I should be allowed to have at least an opinion…). We then asked him to look for a larger piece of land and inquire if we could give a down payment and then pay in monthly installments and the answer was “no, nobody would agree to this kind of arrangement…” Tired and fed up with just “no” as an answer, I told him people will not donate anymore because we are incapable to show any progress and we should get some negotiations going, get some pictures so people could see something is moving. His answer was we could use any pictures from a real estate site because it does not matter anyway. I said I will never do something like this and that I have a moral responsibility vis-à-vis our donors.
Since Dec, we had endless and fruitless discussions with Mr Radu regarding the charity existence and the answer was always “there is a charity but it needs to be renewed, I have no time to find the papers etc.” Alex found a lawyer in Cluj willing to put all the papers together and go to the shelter and get everything signed by Mr Radu but he kept telling us there is no need and that everything will be solved “next week” (took many weeks to get something sorted out and it was mainly done to get the 2% tax return in first quarter of 2017). All this tergiversation was the first question mark for us but made us even more determined to help the animals and not give up.
End of January we intensified our pleas asking Mr Radu to start looking for land because there is not much time left. We were told he has no time to do that because volunteers don’t come anymore as it is very cold and there is no warm place at the shelter where they could get some rest, eat something etc. I spoke with Alex and immediately decided to rent a container for the next 3 months and also buy a generator, using our money, so those amazing kids working so hard at the shelter would get a place to rest and warm up and also Mr Radu would get some spare time to look for land. When I told him I could order the container online and have it delivered to the shelter gate I was told by Mr Radu he needs to see it first but unfortunately (can you guess?) he does not have time to do it. Our hands were tied again. I was starting to lose my mind because there was no progress and no way to ask for more money when there was nothing to show. One night, on the phone with Alex and Mr Radu, I asked for a deadline to buy the land and Mr Radu tried to avoid the question but I was stubborn so he gave me end of February. As you know all too well, March came and no sign of any land discussions or anything pertinent in any way. Both myself but mainly Alex was talking to Radu often and tried hard to convince him we NEED to buy soon to be able to start raising money for construction but nothing worked. He told us he needs donations for food and water and Alex started raising money for that and she was also working on building a website where we wanted to put dogs up for adoption and ask for €20/dog for virtual adoptions. We both kept asking for pictures many times and the answer was “yes, sure, I have many pictures, I will send you all…” Nothing was ever sent or received…
We are now mid-March and zero progress and zero feed-back from Mr Radu. That was the first time when, tired and frustrated, I told Mr Radu I am closing the campaign because it was obvious to me there was no time to do anything anymore and big surprise! Next morning, Alex called me saying Mr Radu found a farm, asking price €200,000 , with water and electricity on site and also a few barns that needed repairs but otherwise in good shape (see below).
Very excited, I put an update stating we have a place we are looking at and the picture above. A lot of people got upset questioning our decision to go for something so expensive when we had not enough money to buy bare land, how are we going to pay installments and also have money for daily needs, again, where is a budget etc. I started making plans how to pay the installments. An ex-friend and strong supporter of the project, told me about Harmony fund in USA and gave me all contact information so I wrote to them. I could not believe my eyes when I received their answer below:
I was so happy and I kept thinking how much we can do with the money… I called Mr Radu and ask him to provide the answers to the questions above regarding the monthly budget, construction budget etc. The answer was “sure, I can give you something” but I didn’t get anything. Waited for days, asking again and still nothing. I was crying when I sent my answer to Harmony fund saying “at this point in time I do not have the information requested so I will contact you in the near future…” As for the farm and price negotiations, nothing…
We got to end of March, with ABSOLUTELY NOTHING tangible to show and with no power or wish to fight for anything anymore. Donations were picking up as a new supporter from UK brought new life into the campaign but other than that nothing. Beginning of April we were told by the supporter in UK that a friend of hers was in Romania and he will visit Radu’s shelter in Cluj, at her request. We told Radu and the nightmare started. Almost every day I was receiving texts asking for me to call and the discussion was always the same “who is this person, why didn’t he make an appointment, what does he want, there is no time for visitors at the shelter…” I kept repeating this person was going to help the volunteers and work every day, he didn’t want to harm anyone because everybody should imagine how a shelter for 1000 animals looks when there is no full time employees, facilities, no Ritz living conditions etc. Then the comment that put me down burst out: “well, you know Mrs Mariana it is one thing to imagine such a shelter and it is something different to actually see cages where NO CLEANING WAS DONE IN ½ YEAR…” That was a blow to the head and that image is now carved into my brain forever… I tried to regain my voice and told him he should tell this person he is not welcome at the shelter and get done with it. I begged him to hire 5 people, for a week, 200 RON/day/worker to clean those boxes because no animal should be kept like that. I said I will pay out of my pocket for that. I received a cold thank you from Mr Radu and never heard anything about it again… Since then, there is no night I see my dogs going to sleep on the couch in the family room without thinking about those dogs sleeping in excrements and urine that piled up for 6 months in those boxes… That was the moment when I realized I was defeated and announced my decision to close the campaign.
After closing the campaign and announcing all donors who want their donation back should contact me, the wave of accusations and threats started (“you are stealing money…”, “who gives you the right to give the money back, stupid…”, “too bad you are not here so we can show you what you deserve…” etc.) I told Mr Radu about everything because he could have stopped all this nonsense considering all the donations he received from me over one and a half years. His answer was “who can say something like Mrs Mariana, what are we talking about $17,000? This is nothing…” I was heartbroken because yes, maybe this was not a significant amount of money but it was the result of many sleepless nights, stress, health problems but most of all the a result of hundreds of people generosity and compassion… If anyone saw a thank you note posted by Mr Radu after €11,545 was deposited into the charity account please tell me because I certainly didn’t see one…
As you know, after the campaign was closed, I received the message from USA that ended with a €30,000 donation in the charity account. I have to admit, I didn’t sleep all night after receiving that message trying to make the right decision. I ended up telling myself I HAVE NO RIGHT to take this chance away from those poor animals and I contacted Mr Radu who told me first there are 3 pieces of land he is looking at, asking price between €30,000 and €50,000 and a few days later he told me he is negotiating to drop the old farm price as owners are accepting a down payment of €50,000. You know the rest…
We both agreed we will not say anything until the money gets deposited into the charity account and I also told Mr Radu he is entitled to make the announcement first and thank the donors and then I will post a final update on my campaign.
A few days later, Mr Radu calls me and tells me he discussed the donation with a few close “friends”) and that their advice was not to disclose the amount. I was very categorical saying this is unacceptable and that supporters and volunteers need to know the exact amount and that transparency and clear communication will convince more people to help. Mr Radu agreed.
Imagine my surprise when one or two days later, Kim sent me a very ambiguous posting made by the UK supporter saying something like “An American friend donated quite a bit of money…(??)” asking me if I knew anything. That was the moment when I lost it… I sent a message to Mr Radu immediately asking if this was what we both agreed upon and why is he mocking me etc. I posted my final update on the campaign right away and I also got out of Mr Radu’s list of friends. I never blocked him and also, at his request, I put him in direct contact with the USA donors when he expressed his wish to be the one keeping them posted on what is happening at the shelter.
For all of you out there screaming blue murder, posting threats, cursing and insulting everyone who is asking questions, calling yourselves “animal protectors and lovers” (where were most of you last year and even beginning of this year when we were begging for help every day?), for all of you I have attached the list of my personal donations to Mr Radu’s shelter hoping you will stop accusing me for stealing campaign money. Also, for all these people, I have a few questions and conclusions considering all of us involved in this fund raiser are now branded as “enemies” and accused of “wanting to kill these animals”:
- Contrary to everything you say, we had A DREAM and REAL PLANS to better the lives of these poor dogs and EVERYTHING WE DID was directed towards ACHIEVING the final goal, i.e. a new shelter and a new beginning for over 900 animals… Unfortunately it was never OUR DECISION and we were never seen as COLLABORATORS but rather nothing more than “FUNDS COLLECTORS”…
- There are rumors being spread that 5% of Gofund me money was lost because of the Gofund me fees and 10% of the funds from bank transfers. Rest assured these are dirty lies. Gofund me retains 7.8% of the collected money and I PAID, OUT OF MY OWN POCKET, AS PROMISED, all the fees (just do the mathematics and you will see I am right). Also, the donations were sent in Euro into an Euro account and again the wire transfer fees were covered by senders both times so my question is how exactly was 15% of the donations lost??
- I don’t believe anybody knows for sure how many dogs are locked in those “mysterious” barns where no visitor is allowed but I want to say it loud and clear: despite the fact a MAJORITY (??) of dogs are roaming the open spaces and look good and healthy and only a MINORITY (??) are closed and never see the light of day or get to have their cages cleaned daily, this minority does not deserve to be punished like this!
- Would you be surprised to find out the first pictures with the “terrifying cages” and the first comments about “the living hell in the shelter” came from some of the most vocal supporters of Mr Termure?
- Lately, there have been many posts about dogs being “adopted” by other shelters in Romania. How can anyone call these “adoptions” when everyone knows that each and every dog shelter in Romania is overwhelmed with the number of dogs they take in, lack of financial support and work force? A shelter, regardless how good it is, will NEVER replace a loving family and a good home!
- I would like to ask all of you screaming we never had the dogs’ best interest at heart and that all we do is denigrate Mr Radu and kill the dogs, what is YOUR SOLUTION except continue to donate money in personal accounts? Do you truly believe that repeating the same mistakes over and over again maybe results will be different? How can you imagine a shelter with over 900 animals would EVER provide DECENT living conditions based SOLELY on the work done by ONE man and a handful of kindhearted volunteers who spend their week-ends working many hours in poor conditions? There are maybe 50 or 100 dogs always free on locations but where is the rest up to 900, who is walking them AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK? What changed in the lives of these dogs over the years since the “saving” activity started, except the number of animals INCREASED exponentially? Have you ever thought why a rent is being paid year after year instead of land being purchased that would provide safe haven for all the dogs for years to come? Have you ever seen a monthly budget for the shelter maintenance, a plan to improve shelter conditions? What do you think will change in years to come? With great sadness I will tell you these dogs will be exactly on the same location, in the same substandard conditions for many years to come, with their lives at risk whenever the owners of the farm will decide they want them evicted…
- A few days ago I asked Mr Radu to show me just one receipt for the €100 daily penalty payment and his answer was “I don’t know who you are anymore Mrs Mariana, very sad…” Why, because I never asked for anything until now? Did any of the supporters see any eviction notice or a proof of penalty payment?
- I would like to end asking all of you if you were asked if you want to live free for a month or many years in a cage, with food and water but nothing else, what would you choose?
I close my story, which only covers maybe 25% of our efforts to try and change the lives of over 900 animals (many not mentioned like for example the option we had to lease the land and build a shelter, bake sale in Calgary with support from a Romanian group here, prizes offered to donors by Kim, out of his own pocket, to stimulate donations, food deliveries organized all the time by Alex etc.) by saying that NO ONE in the world would be happier than me if an announcement would be made tomorrow that land was purchased and the construction for the new shelter starts shortly, that I was wrong and Mr Radu was right! I would take my hat off and tell him “ BRAVO Mr RADU! YOU DID IT!” I still pray and hope…
For those who are planning to send me threats and insults with absolutely no useful meaning, please, don’t bother, as I am too old to be impressed by internet bullying and I don’t care at all about your lack of education and common sense.
Thank you.
Mariana Iftinca
The story of a fund raiser or how “no good deed goes unpunished” 
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