Christmas morning. Just after dawn, breath visible in the cold, wrapped up in thick coat to guard against the unpredictable Lancashire weather, a person makes their way through the security gate and crunches the gravel as they make their way towards the Woodlands Cattery.

While most people are unwrapping gifts from loved ones, they’ve come here to prepare breakfast for forty animals who don't know her name. Food paid for to be placed in pens also heated by the generosity of hundreds of others that these animals will never know about nor meet. The pens themselves attended to and cleaned through another type of gift – volunteers generously giving their time and compassion.

Christmas celebrates giving to those we love. But the most remarkable acts of kindness are often invisible - gifts given to strangers we'll never meet, with no expectation of thanks. And so, it is in the life of running a rescue sanctuary.

It goes without saying that running a sanctuary is a challenge. Despite the rewards that come with saving and transforming lives who would not otherwise have a chance, it can be draining at times.

It can be emotionally draining and yet you never become hardened to it.

We often see animals come in from very dire circumstances and at the hand of purposeful cruelty and neglect. Sometimes rescued from environments you’re surprised people think fit to live in.

We see animals come in with illnesses or a state of health which, despite every bit of expert care and treatment, end up being beyond any professional help or intervention and sadly they pass away. Despite best efforts, and it never gets any easier.

We see animals come in, separated from their much-loved human due to financial circumstances, or their owners own poor health, and mourn for their lost companion.

Then there are the animals we don’t see – the ones that we cannot accommodate due to more urgent cases or limitations on capacity.

However, rescue decisions are never made on financial grounds. Animal welfare always is at the forefront of what we do.

Woodlands doesn’t have a massive amount of ‘rainy day’ reserve funds and is usually only a month or two away from crisis point.

We don’t have a big team – every role serves a specific front-line purpose. To either provide care or raise vital funds via events, grants or donations to our shops or the sanctuary to pay for care the next rescue will need.

We don’t have advertising budgets – you won’t see us on TV or social media with fancy, slick and professionally produced heartstring pulling advertisements. 

We don’t have a huge bank of donations via wills every year – the kind of funding that other, longer established, charities have which can provide month after month of funding in one gift so that they never have to rattle coin tins in supermarket car parks on a cold November morning.

By nature, the work of a rescue is financially draining too.

Medical treatment never gets cheaper. Electricity and heating neither. Yet more and more animals are in need of care. This isn’t just our story. Lots of small to medium local rescues that we know face similar crisis month to month.

Like us they’ll be getting a trickle of emails every week from long and loyal regular donors offering heartfelt apologies as they themselves are hard up for spare cash, circumstances have changed, and they can no longer afford to gift money.

You worry for them too. You hope they’re ok, wishing there was something that you could do to help and give them something back for their dedicated, understated, kindness. But all we have is photos and stories of the lives they have helped to change. Even then those pictures that show the transformation stories in physical form are only a small percentage of the cases their support has enabled. Trauma and neglect do not always show on the outside.

So much is unseen, unspoken.

Many rescues take hours of socialising to learn skills, build trust – to heal their mental scars - and understand that not all humans are inconsiderate, cruel, or fallible to circumstances outside of their control. Enter the cat cuddlers. Volunteers who coach, engage and socialise rescues through their trauma.

Our volunteers come from all backgrounds and ages. Young children with SEN who find solace, learning and connections through engaging with and helping rescues. Retired people who want to overcome isolation, build friendship networks, fill empty time, or give back to the community, whilst finding purpose. People who have suffered from devastating mental health issues who find their own recovery journey in the process of rehabilitating animals. Future animal care professionals who learn key skills in a working environment. Some who just enjoy the coffee, cakes, fresh air and exercise it brings.

It is a team effort, and Woodlands is simply the cog in a wider mechanism of animal welfare. The donors provide momentum, the finances to allow us to do what we do. The volunteers are the oil that helps the cogs move with efficiency and without tiring. A production line of hope.

Just like Santa’s workshop we’d grind to a halt if not for the elves, reindeers and magic dust our community brings.

So, when that lady walks into the cattery, whilst Christmas day is just beginning, and children are excitedly waking to check the end of their bed for stockings to see if he’s been, she does it because it’s her gift to animal welfare. A gift enabled by the kindness of donors, volunteers, and rescue adopters. Who gave something yesterday, so that animals in need might have a tomorrow. Not matter what they gave, nor when they gave. It kept the doors open for someone in need. Human and animal alike.

That’s the true magic of Woodlands.