There were adults and children at Barron Park Donkeys (BPD) on June 9th to celebrate Perry’s 30th birthday. Yes, because Pericles, but for everyone Perry, is a real celebrity in the donkey sanctuary located in Palo Alto, California (United States). He was in fact taken as a model to create the character of Donkey, the talkative friend of the green ogre in the popular “Shrek” saga.
Perry has lived at Barron Park since 1997 and, according to information available on the sanctuary’s website, was donated by Mia Di Giovanni, a resident of Woodside, California, who kept him as a “calming companion” for her Thoroughbred horses. When the horses no longer needed Perry’s company, their owner found them a new home: Barron Park. There he made friends with other donkeys named Mickey, Niner, Jenny and currently Buddy.
In 2001 the film “Shrek” was released, the saga of a green ogre who is accompanied by several adventures with Donkey, a donkey who can talk and a lot. At the time, Dreamworks hired the company Pacific Data Images to create models for the film: “The lead designer lives here in Barron Park. While he was examining his models he said, ‘I know where there is a donkey.’ So they came here and studied Perry. When you look at the body of the Shrek character, that was his body in 1999,” says Mike Holland, one of the volunteers in charge of Perry’s care, in an interview with local media CBS News Bay Area.
Volunteers wrote on the BPD website that the society took “many photographs” of Perry to understand what the donkeys look like and how they move, however, it donated “only $75 and the animal was not mentioned in the headlines end of the film”.
But despite this, everyone in the area knows Perry and loves him, even beyond his lack of public fame. And to prove it, someone came to the shelter’s aid: now bearing the burden of years, his medical expenses have become a concern for his healthcare workers. “The growing demands go up to $25,000 for the three donkeys and an additional $15,000 for unexpected emergencies. We are at a critical point,” Holland said.
All the support Perry and her equine friends, April and Buddy, receive comes from community members. The volunteer told television that there are grandparents who remember playing with donkeys when they were children and who currently bring their grandchildren with them.
For this reason too, the Palo Alto government has offered to match the community’s donations up to 10,000 dollars. Greer Stone, the city’s mayor, said on television that she sees this initiative as “a small investment with a big return in the form of smiles on children’s faces,” as well as “outdoor educational opportunities and increased well-being.”
The Barron Park donkey tradition, according to Holland, has been around since the 1950s, and people like him can’t imagine that tradition ever disappearing.
“I’m not the first to volunteer here and I definitely won’t be the last. It’s a lot of fun and we have dozens of people that come visit us here every day, it’s a really fun neighborhood tradition,” Holland said.
Perry’s caregivers extended an invitation to keep him company on his 30th birthday Sunday.
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