Almost Eden Rescue

Almost Eden Rescue was founded in 2014 after seeing an astounding need in the Ridgecrest, CA community. Since our inception, we have worked tirelessly to improve the lives of animals in our local area through education, adoption, and transportation to out of area rescues to facilitate adoptions in a more broad environment, given that Ridgecrest is a small community. 

Since our founding, the need of rescues and animal advocates have changed continuously. Despite an ever changing, ever present need for rescue, we have risen to meet each challenge, and our resolve for animal advocacy and desire for improving their quality of life grows with each day. Persistence has allowed us to place countless animals in homes since our founding, but also to vaccinate, microchip, and fix pets for free or low cost, making our reach exponentially larger to support the community pet owners. Almost Eden Rescue is also a founding member of Kern SAFE (Saving Animals From Euthanasia), which has offered us opportunities to help people in Bakersfield and other underserved areas of Kern County with our rescue partners & shelters alike. 

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, one item continues to stand out: WE NEED SPAY AND NEUTER! Many veterinary clinics were closed, mobile and low cost clinics weren't running during the pandemic, and throughout that time, animals continued to breed (apparently, dogs and cats didn't get that 6 feet apart memo). We now have dozens of lost pet posts on Facebook and NextDoor each day, of pets that are found, and never reclaimed; litters of puppies being dumped, cats with seemingly no place to go, creating a nuisance in neighborhoods... and the message is clear... we need to provide resources that will allow for low cost clinics to fix animals in this area of Kern County. There simply are not enough homes for all of them, and adding more to an already small community compounds this issue exponentially. 

Almost Eden rescue published a survey in February of 2025, to collect data from community members. of 140 responses, 77% of households that have answered the survey state that "some" or "all" of their pets need to be spayed or neutered. Many of these responses also demonstrate that there are multiple animals in the home, meaning the likelihood of household animals reproducing is higher as well. 

To combat this crisis, we hope that you will support our mission during Give Big Kern, and we thank you for reading our story. We aim to continue making a powerful difference in the lives of people and animals. 

Who We Are

We operate in Ridgecrest, Ca. Our mission is rescuing pets at risk of neglect, abuse, or euthanasia and completely vetting them, leash and potty and crate training them, and any further rehabilitation as needed. We find homes for them with our fosters temporarily and then forever homes that suit their personality and needs.
When we were slammed with 2 large earthquakes July 4th and July 5th 2019 the local animal shelter was closed to the public, as were the vets in our small community of less then 30,000. Also the boarding places in town were closed and so was the pet store. We were literally the only dog or cat anything open for a 2 hour drive in any direction! During those days no one wanted to travel that far from home for a bookcase that had fallen on their chihauhau, or dogs hit by cars and injured. Also fences were uprooted, concrete walls shattered, animals and people in panics. All this caused many escapes and lose animals in the area. We organized our volunteers and used our storage property for emergency holding of lost and found or injured animals. We gave out calming treats and checked for chips, and took care of abandoned pets. We opened up our in town boutique 24-7 to help the community.
Now with the covid-19 we are again helping the community. This time it is with pet food as our shelves are wiped out and so are many people's pocket books. We have had to close our boutique and stop all adoptions as almost all our volunteers either are high risk or one of the few nurses or respiratory therapists here in our small community. We are unable to do safe meet and greets or home checks at this time. And our events have all been cancelled. So we have little donations coming in at this time.
We are lease optioning an acre of property with a 30x50x14 metal building that is zoned correctly for a full blown, open to the public rescue. If our dreams come to fullfillment, we will have a sanctuary for some farm animals, a couple horses, some rescue birds, cats, as well as dozens of dogs. We call this place The Ark. It will also have a place for emergency placement of dozens of crates for temporary holding if we are hit with earthquakes again. The building needs a lot of work and a lot of work has been done by us already. It is a step at a time. But we are wanting to be open to the public when it is safe for our animals and the public and our volunteers again.
Everyone please stay safe and stay well!