Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Christina M. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Christina, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One of our favorite things to hear about is stories around the nicest thing someone has done for someone else – what’s the nicest thing someone has ever done for you?
My husband and I are licensed wildlife rehabbers who typically care for baby squirrels, ranging in age from newborn to several months old who have either been lost, abandoned, or injured. We care for them until they are ready to be rereleased back into the wild. Because of several medical & developmental issues, Thumbelina was classified as “non-releasable”. We quickly noticed her unique personality and began sharing her with the world. She immediately won the hearts of her followers, who demanded Little Thumbelina merchandise and cameos. Just after her 5th birthday, we discovered that Thumbelina was suffering from odontomas, which are benign tumors linked to the tooth. Despite being benign, they will be fatal if not removed. Because squirrel teeth are very different from humans, the procedure involved drilling a hole in the nasal cavity, puling the tooth basically through the nasal region and using a stent open for the animal to breathe through. Living in New York at the time, one of the only and best surgeons who are trained to remove the odontomas was in the Daytona area of Florida. Since squirrels are not allowed on planes, our only option was to drive.
We were obviously raked with fear and anxiety not only from the uncertainty of the procedure and post surgical care, but having to take off work, drive almost 20 hours each way, hotel stay etc. It warms our heart to think how within in 24 hours of us sharing Thumb’s diagnosis with her online “family” a GoFundMe was set up and its goal was completely surpassed. Over the next 18 months, we would make 4 separate trips from New York to Florida for procedures related to her mouth and jaw with a serious infection during the last trip resulted in us having to spend an entire month in Florida. And continuously, donations came in for everything from gas cards, meals etc along with gifts and messages of encouragement and support.
We can confidently say that we have the most loving, most loyal, most genuinely selfless family of followers online and we are thankful every day that they’re in our lives. We constantly receive messages about how Thumbelina’s videos have helped people through difficult times in their lives or just make them smile each day, but we are just as thankful for them in ours. It has truly been the kindest thing anyone has ever done for us.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My husband and I are licensed wildlife rehabbers who typically care for baby squirrels, ranging in age from newborn to several months old who have either been lost, abandoned, or injured. We care for them until they are ready to be rereleased back into the wild. Because of several medical & developmental issues, Thumbelina was classified as “non-releasable”. We quickly noticed her unique personality and began sharing her with the world. The positive response was immediate and we began receiving messages, letters in the mail and packages to the point that we had to set up her own PO Box to handle it all We have a variety of Thumbelina merchandise from clothing to blankets, but I would say the two items we are most proud of are her Cameos & yearly calendar. Each cameo is typically around 4-5 minutes long is individually personalized for each recipient with Thumbelina holding up a variety of messages and signs created specifically for each person. We’re even more proud of our annual Little Thumbelina calendar because it represents an entire year of Thumbelina fun and love. One of the things people love most about Thumbelina are her variety of costumes and personalities, which again, typically culminate to 12 of the best moments from the year.
Thumbelina has also been hired multiple times as a model/spokes”squirrel” for various products from cosmetics to a local theater house and future projects include an animation and possible book series.
**Regardless of what she is working on, in everything we do, what’s most important to us is to spread our message of love and respect for all living things and that “Every little life is big to the one living it.”
How did you build your audience on social media?
I think the most important and helpful advice we could give to building an audience would be personal interaction. I think one of the things that makes Thumbelina’s account so popular and why we have been able to grow her page so much is that we honestly care about every individual person who is in our “Thumbelina Family”. And if you speak to any of our followers, I think they would say the same. We individually respond to every message that is sent to Thumb. It sometimes takes us a little while to get back to everyone but we’ll spend hours just responding to messages because we know how important it is not only to us but to the person who has made that connection with some aspect of our little Thumbelina. The same thing applies when we receive fan mail or gifts. We take the time to go through each piece and make a little video showing the present or artwork someone has made to show them how truly thankful we are not only for it, but for them. We don’t look at Thumb’s followers as fans but as Family.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
The most rewarding aspect of being artistic or creative is seeing all the different ways that people react and gravitate towards our little Thumbelina. Every single one of Thumbelina’s online family are unique. They all have different stories about how they discovered Thumbelina or what she means to them. Some people are just animal lovers while some people look towards Thumb almost as a way to deal with whatever difficult time they are going through. We are constantly receiving messages from people who have gone through a tragedy, an illness, or even just the everyday difficulties of life and watch Thumb’s videos as a way to temporally get away from everything and just laugh. We received a message once from the brave firefighters in California who were really going through such difficult times and loss during one of the devastating forest fires they had and sent us a video of some of his fellow firefighters just watching Thumbelina’s videos and laughing at her silly antics as a way to just escape some of the trauma they were going through. It’s those irreplaceable moments that are the most rewarding. There isn’t anything that makes us as happy as when we are able to be a source of love & comfort for someone who needs it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://littlethumbelinagirl.weebly.com/about.html
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/little_thumbelina_girl?igshid=4p3ln6el10t2
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/littlethumbelinagirl/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLQQtP8sWGPx5C08Kh2s6SA
- Other: Thumbelina Calendar – https://etsy.me/2XVi1mV GoFundMe – https://www.gofundme.com/f/little-thumbelina-girls-surgery Cameo – https://v.cameo.com/6iC5UdIeo8 TikTok –https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeDvVR9b/ Amazon Wishlist – https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/QA8QTDSLVGQ1?ref_=wl_share Amazon Favorites – https://www.amazon.com/shop/little_thumbelina_girl Thumbelina’s Shop – https://society6.com/littlethumbelinagirl