ABOUT Stella's
Stella’s RESCUE began the way all good things do: with love. Specifically, the kind of love that comes from a red-fox lab named Stella - our first dog, our best friend, and the soul behind everything we’re building.
Stella had a way of making everyone feel welcome - animals, kids, total strangers. She listened like she understood every word, and she taught us that home isn’t just a physical place, it’s a feeling. It’s being cared for, seen, and safe. And that’s what we’ve tried to create ever since, first in our home, and now on our farm.
About me: Kelsey's story
Hi,
I’m Kelsey.
I think I’ve always known I was supposed to do something with animals. I just took a very long, slightly ridiculous, and at times medically questionable route to actually doing it.
When I was a kid, I was the person who would find an injured animal and immediately decide it was now my responsibility. Birds, bunnies, chickens, whatever I came across. I would show up at Reynolda Veterinary Hospital carrying some random wounded creature I’d found and basically hand it over like, “Here you go, please fix this.” I had absolutely no money, no plan, and honestly no idea what happened to most of them after I left. In my little kid brain, veterinarians were magical people whose job was to fix every animal that appeared at the front desk, regardless of whether anyone was actually paying them.
So, in hindsight, the warning signs were there.
The Dream...
I always dreamed about having an animal rescue one day. But then life happened. I grew up, got a real job, built a career, and did all the things you're supposed to do as a responsible adult.
I spent almost eight years at LineDrive, starting in Business Development and eventually becoming Director of Organizational Development and Capabilities. And I was good at it. I worked hard, grew professionally, and was surrounded by people I genuinely loved working with. I want to make that part really clear because this isn't a story about hating my job, storming out of corporate America, and dramatically following my dreams. LineDrive was incredibly good to me, especially when my life took a turn that none of us could have imagined. There are people there I will be grateful to for the rest of my life.
The problem wasn't that I was unhappy. It was that somewhere underneath everything, I knew it wasn't what I was supposed to be doing.
Apparently, the universe knew that too.
It just had a fairly aggressive way of telling me.
The universe gets involved
In September 2023, when I was 36, I went to Nepal to trek to Everest Base Camp. I was about two days and somewhere around 2 miles away from Base Camp when I started feeling very wrong.
At roughly 17,000 feet, I had a major stroke.
We didn't know that at the time. Everyone thought I was suffering from altitude sickness, which made complete sense given that I was, you know, on Mount Everest. So I did what any sensible person having an undiagnosed stroke at 17,000 feet should absolutely not do.
I kept climbing.
Somehow, I made it to around 18,000 feet.
By then, I wasn't really myself anymore. My body was physically there, but mentally I wasn't. We've since given this state the very scientific medical term "noodling." There were periods where I was essentially unconsciously noodling around in my sleeping bag while the people around me were trying to figure out what was happening.
And then, somehow, I came back down
From around 18,000 feet, after already having a stroke, I made it miles and miles back down the mountain to somewhere around 9,000 feet. I don't tell you that because I think I'm some sort of superhero. In fact, I think it probably proves that I am equal parts tough and unbelievably stubborn. But when I look back on it now, I genuinely don't understand how my body did what it did.
Eventually, it became very clear that this was not normal altitude sickness.
I was stretchered to a nearby medical facility and I am using the words medical facility generously, where I spent more than a day waiting for a helicopter to be able to get through the terrain and conditions.
Eventually, one did.
I was flown to Kathmandu and taken to Medi Citi Hospital, where an incredible team of doctors finally discovered what had happened and how much danger I was in. The pressure on my brain had become life-threatening, and I needed an emergency craniectomy, a surgery where part of your skull is removed to relieve pressure on your brain.
There's not really a funny sentence to follow that one.
Those doctors saved my life.
I spent days in the ICU and roughly another two weeks in hospitals in Nepal. I was thousands of miles away from home, from my family, and from the animals I loved. All I wanted was to get back.
Especially to Bobby.
Eventually, I did.
But coming home wasn't the end of it.
Back stateside
I suffered two more strokes after returning to the United States, and recovery became a much longer road than I ever imagined. Some of that recovery is still part of my life today. There are things that changed after Nepal that I continue to deal with, and I've had to learn that surviving something and being completely finished with it are two very different things.
Eventually, though, I went back to work.
LineDrive had treated me so well through everything that returning felt like the right thing to do. I wanted some normalcy back. I wanted to prove to myself that I could still do it. And for a while, I did.
The universe, apparently, was sitting somewhere watching this thinking, Are you serious? We literally gave you three strokes.
When life gets very clear
Then we lost Beck, our chocolate Lab.
Soon after, I lost my grandmother.
There's something about loss, especially after you've already come frighteningly close to losing your own life, that changes the questions you ask yourself. Things that once seemed incredibly important suddenly aren't. Things you've been putting off until "one day" start feeling a little more urgent.
I had spent years building a career and convincing myself that because I was good at something, it must be what I was supposed to do.
But I'd almost died.
More than once.
And eventually I had to ask myself: If I've been given another shot at this, what am I actually going to do with it?
The answer was embarrassingly obvious.
It was the same answer it had been when I was a little girl walking into Reynolda Vet holding an injured bird with absolutely no plan for what happened next.
Animals.
It had always been animals.
And really, it had always been Stella
Stella's Rescue began with our first dog, a red-fox Lab named Stella. She was our first dog, our best friend, and eventually became the soul behind everything we're trying to build.
Stella was one of those dogs who made everyone feel like they belonged. Animals, children, friends, complete strangers, it didn't matter. She welcomed everyone. She would sit and listen to you like she understood every word you were saying, and honestly, I'm still not entirely convinced she didn't.
What Stella taught us was that home isn't really a building. It's a feeling. It's knowing you're safe. It's being cared for and seen and loved without having to earn any of it first.
That's what we wanted Stella's Rescue to become.
We started in our home and then on our farm, taking in the forgotten, the misfits, and the magical. Dogs and cats, donkeys and goats, pigs, chickens, ducks, turkeys and at this point I probably shouldn't publicly list everything because some animal will read this and take it as an invitation.
But every animal that comes through Stella's reminds me why we're doing it. They arrive with completely different stories, but so many of them need exactly the same thing: somewhere safe to land and someone willing to give them another chance.
I understand second chances a little differently these days.
There’s one more person in this story
I also wouldn't have been able to take this leap without my grandfather, Andy Bailey.
My grandfather was an incredibly loving man. Was he the world's biggest animal lover? No. Let's not rewrite history here. But he loved Stella, which is really all the character reference anyone needs. He also had a soft spot for a neighbor's dog named Peanut who regularly wandered over to his house in Beaufort, so I like to think we were gradually wearing him down.
After he passed, my grandfather gave me something that helped make it possible for me to finally stop saying one day and actually begin building Stella's.
I don't want to make that part of the story about money because it wasn't. It was about opportunity. He gave me the ability to take a chance on the thing I'd quietly wanted to do my entire life.
I hope he'd be proud of what we're building with it.
And I really hope Stella has found him wherever they both are. Although there's a decent chance Peanut has already shown up uninvited too.
Then we actually started rescuing animals (OFFICIALLY? LEGALLY? 501C3'Y :)
We knew animals needed help. We just had absolutely no idea how many.
Every day, we get calls, emails and messages about another dog who needs a home, an abandoned cat, a medical case, or an animal running out of time. And I quickly learned that the hardest part of rescue isn't the poop, although there is an impressive amount of that.
It's saying no.
We simply don't have the space or resources to help every animal. Vet care, food, medicine and facilities are expensive. Love, unfortunately, doesn't pay invoices. There are so many times I want to say, "Yes. Bring them here. We'll figure it out." But sometimes the responsible answer has to be no.
I hate that word. I want to say it less.
So we're building something bigger
We're working toward a downtown Winston-Salem space where we can rescue more dogs and cats and create something special for our community. If this building doesn't work out, we'll find another. I've learned I'm reasonably difficult to kill and even harder to discourage.
We want Stella's to feel like Stella did: welcoming, safe, a little chaotic, and full of love.
But we can't do it alone. If you can give $10 a month, please consider becoming a monthly donor. A little dependable support goes a long way toward food, medicine, vet bills and helping us say yes to one more animal.
Can't donate? Foster, volunteer, share our story, buy a hat, tell your friends or connect us with a business that wants to help. And if you have a ridiculously wealthy uncle, I have some ideas.
My grandfather helped give us the opportunity to start Stella's. Our community will determine how far we can take it.
I think I finally got the message.
When I look back at the little girl bringing injured animals to the vet, Stella, my career, Everest, three strokes, brain surgery and everything we've lost along the way, it all makes a little more sense.
Nearly losing my life forced me to decide what I wanted to do with the part of it I still had.
I want to save animals.
We won't save them all. That's the hardest part to accept. But we can save one, then another, and with enough people behind us, hopefully a whole lot more.
I want Stella's to be here long after we're gone, giving animals what Stella gave everyone she met: a place to feel safe, loved and like they belong.
Love,
Kelsey
P.S. Seriously, the $10 a month helps. The dogs remain completely unwilling to seek employment.