By Natasha Goyette
“Yulie, Yulie, Yulie!” rang from the parade of children chanting outside of the orphanage as Julie and her family ascended the gravel driveway in Nicaragua.
Julie Burke, the human heart behind the animal welfare organization, NicaLove, has been a guardian angel to those in need since her childhood on the seacoast of New Hampshire. Living in a working-class neighborhood in the city of Portsmouth the quirky animal-lover filled her childhood wonder with all things animals. Her short attention span and learning challenges were blessings in disguise as she was drawn to the calm and grounding effect of being around animals. In middle school, she often visited the neighborhood animals at Griffin’s Half Acre Farm, because she connected to their pure hearts. She spent weekends at her aunt’s farm with chickens, cows, dogs and led horse trail rides on the land so that she could have more time with animals. Julie has been collecting worms from the pavement and transporting them to the grass since the first time it rained on her little girl self. And the next rainstorm she will do it again.
Julie has committed much of her life to the service of others. When her husband, Matt, first started traveling to Nicaragua to surf, Julie continued to focus her philanthropic efforts at home in Rye, New Hampshire. After a few solo surf trips to Central America Matt persuaded his wife to join him by connecting her with a local volunteer. Lured by the opportunity to help in a community in need, Julie volunteered at an orphanage near Playa San Diego where Matt, Julie, and their young daughters stayed. On future trips, Julie, Addie, and Natalia spent their days at the orphanage playing with the children. Back in America, Julie collected baseball equipment for her Double Play Gear program she organized with a friend and delivered sport and school supplies to the Nicaraguan children.
During a fateful trip in the winter of 2012 Julie met a beautiful 5-year-old girl at that same orphanage. Each day Julie returned to play with the children, she felt her heart growing. The family was told the adoption process would be long and uncertain. That summer Julie got the call that they had one week to get to Nicaragua for the adoption.
It was August 7, 2012, and her husband, Matt, tells the story of the children lining the driveway singing Julie’s name as the Burke family arrived with a plan to surprise their newly adopted daughter. The children looked forward to their visits and came running when they heard their car rumbling up the gravel driveway. A tradition at the orphanage is to dress the child in her best clothes and style her hair for her new parents. As the family walked into the small bedroom there she was leaning against the dresser waiting for her finishing touches, she turned to see her new family. As her bright smile warmed the whole room, she radiated toward Julie and said, “it’s you.” Tears flowed from everyone’s eyes.
Julie credits her shift to animal welfare to a lemonade stand that Natalia and her friend, Veda hosted at Cinnamon Rainbows Surf Shop in 2015. The girls raised $250 and donated half to the NHSPCA and the other half to the neglected street dogs in Nicaragua. Julie was tasked with finding an animal welfare organization in Nicaragua. It was not an easy one. Julie discovered the animal rescue organization, Fundacion ADAN, in Managua, an hour and a half from Playa San Diego. This started a relationship that garnered access to the local help Julie needed to start NicaLove.
Many told Julie there were too many sick and neglected animals to make a significant difference. Qualified veterinary care was nonexistent. The condition of the animals in the streets of Playa San Diego was too dire to tackle. Julie did it anyway. And it has not been for the faint of heart. Finding neglected, starved, maimed animals on the side of the road left to perish has left Julie with a battered heart. Sometimes she has wanted to give up. But she hasn’t.
When Julie was a teen, she read a parable hanging on the cinderblock walls of her high school: The Starfish Story
One day, while walking on a beach, a man saw a little boy throwing starfish back in the water. The man walked up to the boy and said, “Boy, you are wasting your time. Can’t you see there are too many starfish for you to help them all? What you are doing doesn’t matter.” The boy threw another starfish into the ocean, looked at the man, and said, “I made a difference for that one.”
Julie loves animals and invariably gives her time and energy to help them. From her first street dog, Flaco, who wandered into Julie’s life full of disease, mange, hunger, and a wagging tail, to the thousands of dogs, cats, and horses NicaLove has sponsored in sterilization, rescue, and rehabilitation efforts, Julie endures with her mission to save the animals within her reach. And with NicaLove her reach continues to exponentially grow. After an extraordinary fundraising effort in New Hampshire, NicaLove with Fundación ADAN will open a 10-acre animal sanctuary in San Diego Playa, creating a permanent location for a vet clinic, rehabilitation center, and shelter to serve the community and the animals in it.
The Starfish Story captured the essence of Julie’s young life. It spoke to the core of who she was and still is. Julie Burke, the founder of NicaLove, is the person who weathers the storm and rescues one worm at a time every time.
