Our Patron

The Wonderful Woman Who Helps AFOT Continue To Grow

Animal Friends of Turkey has been truly blessed to find a patron as fully supportive as she is to us as fabulous patron Sam Hutchinson.

Sam has been an incredible supporter to us as a charity ever since she first came into contact with us in applying to adopt an AFOT dog.

She took our Benny into her home and since then she has stepped forward time after time to help us with our appeals. It was her financial aid that was crucial in us being able to open and set up our Sanctuary as quick as we did.

And stunningly, she responded to our £25k appeal to help with transport costs by coming forward to give us the WHOLE amount after she heard that the future of AFOT was in jeopardy.

We were staggered and when we asked her why she was being so generous she answered quickly and simply: “There is no way I could stand by and let you close. The work you do is too important.”

That sums Sam up and her commitment to us and the work we do on the ground in Turkey to help vulnerable and needy dogs there.

Sam is a Partner in a law firm that serves the financial sector of the City of London, and she takes an active interest in the our rescue work.

Since taking on Benny she has also adopted another AFOT dog in our sweet Findik and the pair of them have truly fallen on their feet along with a pack of dogs of all shapes and sizes who live the life of royalty at Sam’s home.

The least we could do was to offer her the role as our Patron and we were so pleased and proud when she said yes.

Sam went one step further in her commitment to helping animals around the world when she set up the charity platform ‘The Power of One’. This is designed to give small non-profit charities a voice against the larger animal charities who have media machines and many staff members dedicated to being ‘seen’ and therefore donated to as a matter of course.

AFOT was invited to the launch event at Church House in London hosted by Breakfast TV’s Pip Thompson and singer Daniel Johnson, guest speaker, animal activist Dominic Dyer, and singer’s Raksu and main attraction the wonderful Leona Lewis, who along with a host of other celebrities continue to support Sam and The Power of One, which has gone on to raise thousands of poungs for animal charities across the world.

We were asked to submit a campaign for the night, which you can read about on our piece ‘The Innocents Caught Up In The Crossfire’. This £6000 campaign was the first of Sam’s campaigns to be fulfilled and allowed us to treat the six featured dogs with their initial rescue and treatment. This was the first of many campaigns AFOT has benefitted from thanks to The Power of One & Sam.

Bless you Sam – AFOT and many animal rescue charities would not be able to do half of things you made possible without your help.