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Humans, animals celebrate ThanksLiving at sanctuary in Lackawanna County

With the holiday season coming up, one sanctuary invites guests to celebrate alongside their animals every year.

LACKAWANNA COUNTY, Pa. — It was a feast to kick off November, but instead of celebrating Thanksgiving, this group of birds is celebrating ThanksLiving.

There, the turkeys and chickens enjoyed quite the feast of their own. 

"I just want to think about people and send them love; if you want to do a meditation, let's just take a moment and send that out for anyone who needs it," said Indra Lahiri, founder of Indraloka Animal Sanctuary.

Indra Lahiri is the founder of Indraloka Animal Sanctuary in Dalton. She says ThanksLiving is all about cultivating an environment full of compassion, care, and love, "With the world today, there's a lot of suffering. There's a lot of pain, there's a lot of problems, and so we want to help people really focus on joy and kindness and just spreading the love around."

It's the 13th year for this fundraising tradition, as people come from far and wide.

"It's, this is awesome. This is really. It just warms your heart to think that somebody can love an animal, any animal this much. It's really beautiful," said Judy Gass, Maine.

Kids also got to join in on the fun of feeding the birds during their feast. "Tell me, what was your favorite part?" "Feeding them a watermelon. Yeah," said Isiaiah Olsen, San Diego, California.

Amid the crowd there was one star of the sanctuary. Lamby, who has three legs, isn't slowing down in his stardom any time soon. 

"His episode will be coming out this spring on Disney+ on the Wizard of Paws. So yes, Sir Thelonius Makoonens of The Sheepie Meadow, otherwise known as Loni Lamby," said Lahiri.

After the chickens and turkeys were done feasting, the clean-up crew came along.

"With ThanksLiving today, it's just, it's a fun way to get people smiling, get people excited about something different than you know what's happening in the world right now, and just take their minds off of it," said Kaitlyn White, NEPA Rescue Vet Clinic Coordinator.

"Everybody comes here with such a full heart, and they are so excited to see the animals," added Lahiri.

Leaving with an even fuller heart and tummy.

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