Working fast and furious to help chimps
It was a warm spring morning and Christy Jellets was waste deep in muddy water. The dirty liquid roiled around her as she worked, hands well below the surface and out of sight, to repair a clogged culvert at Project Chimps.
While her team members were busy welding chimpanzee enclosures and clearing fallen brush, Christy noticed a job that needed immediate attention.
Getting down and dirty
Rainwater was cascading down the hill and instead of traveling through the pipe under the sanctuary’s internal Ready Road, it was streaming across the gravel drive and taking the gravel with it. So she jumped in with both feet – soon to be very wet feet – and repaired the clogged culvert herself.
Christy brings a relentless, can-do attitude to work every day as Manager of Facilities.
Now two years into her position at Project Chimps, she’s transformed a small and cumbersome outsourced maintenance contract into an efficient, full-service, in-house facilities department.
And it’s all for former research chimps like Oscar.
Oscar was born for medical research and on March 21, 2018, at the age of seven, he was chosen to make the journey from the lab to permanent sanctuary along with groupmates Hercules, Leo, and six other adolescent chimpanzees.
Transporting Oscar from the lab
It’s a 12-14 hour journey from the New Iberia Research Center in southern Louisiana to Project Chimps and Christy was on the four-member transport team.
“I made a connection with little Oscar that day and he’s continued to be my favorite chimpanzee in the sanctuary ever since,” said Christy.
Christy was on the transport because she wanted to understand, first-hand, the needs and challenges of moving precious cargo halfway across the country.
Working fast and furious for the chimps
Today, Christy heads a small but efficient team that includes David Defrance, Lucas Stiles, Rodney Newberry and Ryan Kennedy. Together, they provide services including building maintenance, light construction, carpentry, electrical, plumbing, auto mechanics, welding, landscaping and grounds maintenance for the entire 236-acre sanctuary.
Ryan Kennedy runs point for Christy on Project Harvest, an expanding program to grow and harvest fruits, vegetables, nuts and forgeable plants for the increasing number of chimps.
Christy also manages all outsourced services such as roadway surfacing, advanced plumbing and electrical services, or damaged tree removals.
She keeps the facilities budget lean by leveraging one of the most powerful resources at her disposal: a local volunteer corps of more than 200 people.
Volunteers extend the team
In 2019, Project Chimps volunteers logged more than 17,000 hours in service of the sanctuary, and more than 4,000 were under Christy’s supervision.
Her skilled and committed group of nearly 20 volunteers helped to build new climbing structures for the chimps, create garden areas, clear brush, treat ailing Hemlock trees, make repairs inside the chimpanzee villas, and create new chimpanzee enrichment items like fire hose hammocks and ladders.
They also took on one of the most arduous and tedious projects in sanctuary history: organizing and itemizing all of the tools, machines, and parts in the maintenance shop. Now, if a volunteer needs a 3/8” socket wrench or a limit switch they can walk right in and grab it from a neatly labeled drawer or bin on the wall.
Quick repairs when needed
The increased efficiency and added expertise has helped Christy to dramatically reduce the down time around needed repairs. If one of the sanctuary’s golf carts needs new brakes, Dave is there to fix it and get it back in service transporting chimp food from the kitchen to the villas.
If a metal mesh panel needs to be replaced and welded inside one of the chimp villas, Lucas is there on the spot. Recent hire Rodney is an expert in carpentry and helped to build out a new workspace extension to the sanctuary’s one-room administrative office in just a few days.
Our clients are chimpanzees
Christy even has a mission statement for her group: To provide an efficient, effective and safe environment for clients (the chimpanzees), staff, volunteers, and guests.
To that end, she oversaw the build-out of the sanctuary’s newest and largest chimpanzee house, the Laurie and Carlee McGrath Chateau, made possible by the McGrath Family Foundation.
The Chateau was the last of the empty shell buildings that came with Project Chimps’ purchase of a defunct gorilla sanctuary. Finishing this structure allowed Project Chimps to bring two new groups of chimps from the lab to sanctuary in late 2019, bringing the total number of residents to 79, with more slated to come in 2020.
Expanding to get more chimps out of the lab
When those new chimps arrive, the sanctuary will effectively be full. That’s why Christy, Ali and the team are looking ahead to Project Chimps’ expansion. That expansion will include multiple outdoor habitats and companion chimpanzee housing to complement the existing, 6-acre Peachtree Habitat.
All for chimps like Oscar
Christy says that somedays she feels like the TV character MacGyver, repurposing old parts and tools to create new solutions for the chimps. Because Project Chimps is privately funded and depends largely on donations of vehicles, parts and tools, she doesn’t always have what she needs on hand. For that reason, she’s grateful for every donation that comes from the sanctuary’s Amazon Wish List or the local community.
Still, Christy says she’s proud of her team’s ability to work at a fast and furious pace to keep the sanctuary operating smoothly for the chimps, staff, volunteers and occasional guests.
She’s also proud that she’s able to maintain a home for chimps like Oscar.
“It’s been so much fun to watch him grow, change and thrive,” said Christy, adding, “It makes all the hard work worthwhile.”
You can help provide the tools and parts our team members need to help the chimps by donating a much needed item our Amazon Wish List or Amazon Smile Wish List.
Photos by Crystal Alba, Joan Miller and Leslie Wade.