Maya Higa

But this is crazier.

It worked somehow.

So I'm livestreaming one day, and there's some... Oh, thank you.

Whoa.

I'll take the applause.

Thank you so much.

So I'm livestreaming one day, and someone in my live chat said, Maya, if we raised $500,000, would you shave your head on stream?

And I said, yeah, duh.

Because who wouldn't do that?

Who in their right mind wouldn't do that?

Apparently, that was pretty motivating, though, because over the course of a 21-hour-long livestream, we fundraised $573,000.

to build this sanctuary.

So I bought some land in Austin, Texas, started building animal enclosures, and I started growing my hair back.

That takes about two years, in case anyone was curious.

So next up was rescuing animals.

OK, so Appa and Momo are marmosets.

They're these very tiny, very, very charming New World monkeys.

Someone originally bought them as pets online, but then after years of inadequate care, they were brought to us for rehabilitation.

So they now live at Alves to help teach people about the exploitation of primates in the pet trade and about the importance of conserving their rainforest habitats too.

They also have a little iPad to play games on now.