08/20/2026
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1DN444YPdH/?mibextid=wwXIfr
Pets Fly To Their Forever Families: For more than 20 years, Goldsboro residents Sandi Gardner and Nina Silverthorne have been volunteers in a rescue program for pets, Duffy’s Friends, which has given them many stories to tell and satisfaction in knowing they have helped save animals from euthanasia.
According to Pilots N Paws volunteer pilot Captain Patty Wagstaff on the PNP website, 4 million animals a year undergo euthanasia, a pattern she, rescue workers like Gardner and Silverthorne, and volunteer pilots like Don Ingraham hope to change.
Gardner, who has worked for T. A. Loving Co. for 40 years, said she has always loved animals.
“I had a chicken as a pet in high school that had fallen off a chicken truck,” she said. “And I had cats, dogs, a rabbit and birds as pets.”
Silverthorne retired from the Wayne County Health Department in the early 2000s where she was a social worker supervisor. She likes to adopt older, handicapped dogs no one else wants, and she and Gardner spent their early years transporting animals — dogs, cats, and kittens — to rescue foster homes in Emporia, Virginia; South Carolina; and Rochester, New York.
The foster families fed and housed the animals until their new families picked them up to take them to their new home.
Gardner and Silverthorne hear about rescue animals through Duffy’s Friends, a 501-C-3 organization that connects pets with new families, coordinating with Pilots N Paws to transport the animals to rescue foster homes in Rochester, New York.
“During the 1990s I would walk through City Animal Control and buy the dogs that were scheduled to be put to sleep,” said Lori Muffford, Duffy’s Friends founder in Brockport, New York.
There she found Duffy, a small dog she adopted. Upon his death, Mufford vowed to establish a group whose mission would be to rescue unwanted pets and find new homes for them.
Don Ingraham, New Bern resident and volunteer pilot with Pilots N Paw, has been involved with basset hound rescue. He has been flying pets, dogs mostly, since about 2012. A flight instructor in the past, he owns his plane based at the Coastal Carolina Regional Airport, in New Bern.
When Silverthorne called him recently, he met with her and Gardner at the Wayne Executive Jetport where they loaded the dogs Ziggy and Finn into Ingram’s plane. The women have “fostered” the dogs, feeding them and taking care of their needs.
Ingram flew the animals to Martinsburg, West Virginia, where another pilot made the second and last leg of the journey to Rochester where new families waited to adopt Finn, a certified golden retriever. Ziggy, a poodle mix, will remain in a rescue foster homes until a family adopts him.
“We used to have to drive the animals to New York, so we are thankful for volunteers like Ingram,” Silverthorne said.
Ingraham said he receives no reimbursement for fuel, but he can claim the expenses on his taxes.
“My reward is seeing the happiness on the faces of a family who want a pet,” he said. “It’s gratifying to unite a dog in need of a home with caring people.”
Anyone interested in providing a foster home for animals can contact Silverthorne at 919-738-3102 or [email protected].
“Fostering is great for people who love animals but do not want the full responsibility of keeping a pet permanently,” she said. “The rescue organizations like Duffy’s Friends pay for any expenses generated until the rescue workers deliver the animals to their forever families.”
Thanks to the collaboration of dedicated rescue workers like Gardner and Silverthorne and rescue organizations like Duffy’s Friends and Pilots N Paws, many pets enjoy a happy, healthy life with a loving family.
https://www.newsargus.com/news/local/pets-fly-to-their-forever-families/article_d231e301-028b-5428-ab4b-48e1db188d5d.html
