Public voting will determine the winners, and the voting period begins June 16.

After entering a 3-minute video, West Place, a nonprofit animal rescue group, was selected by the judges to move to the final round of the contest, which consists of 12 days of voting. Members of the public may use the link at westplace.org to view video entries in the Animal Welfare category, and vote once per day.

“We are ecstatic to represent Little Rhody on the national stage,” said Wendy Taylor, executive director and founder of West Place. “We have been rescuing farm animals and rehabilitating wildlife for 14 years, and during that time we’ve been needed in areas where there are no roads of which to speak. We’ve relied on personal vehicles to rescue large animals, and to transport animals like pigs, alpaca, peacocks, and others to veterinary hospitals.”

Taylor gave up a career litigating medical malpractice cases to take up animal welfare after nine of her house pets died in a three-alarm fire in February 2003. She started it as a hobby, but it quickly grew into a registered nonprofit.

Taylor’s pets are memorialized, alongside other animals that have lived out their lives at the rescue center, in a beautiful grassy pasture at the back of the property.

Land Rover created the contest to honor “the incredible displays of bravery and resilience” of nonprofits that continued to move forward during the coronavirus pandemic.

West Place arose out of tragedy to aid animals recovering from abuse and horrible living conditions.

In 2016, they took in animals from the Westport Farm animal abuse case, where authorities found more than 1,400 animals in varying levels of distress. About 1,100 survived with the help of rescues. West Place took 67 of them.

“It’s not always dogs and cats going to a nice big hospital with a nice parking lot,” Taylor said. “We are an official response partner of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.”

Jack and Diane, two bonded pigs named for the characters in the John Mellencamp song, were morbidly portly when they arrived, stamped for certain death. They had been fed a diet of stale donuts and junk food and were so obese they could barely walk and were temporarily blinded by the folds of fat on their faces.

The two friends were placed on a nutritious diet, exercise, and skin rejuvenation plan that saved them. Jack was later diagnosed with testicular cancer, but underwent successful surgery…..”