by founder Nancy Janes
The history of the Center of Hope is a narrative of how a grassroots effort transformed animal welfare in Romania from a crisis-driven response into a sustainable, structured medical framework.
The Early Roots (2001–2003)
The foundation for the hospital was laid in 2001, when an American hiker named Nancy Janes visited Romania. Shocked by the vast population of starving, injured, and abused stray dogs roaming the streets and forests, she decided to take action. In 2003, she founded Romania Animal Rescue (RAR) as a US-registered 501(c)3 charity. In its first few years, RAR operated largely as a fundraising engine, sponsoring sporadic spay/neuter events using rented spaces and temporary setups.
The Partnership & Mobile Era (2008–2015)
The organization's trajectory shifted fundamentally in 2008 when Dr. Aurelian Stefan joined RAR as its Medical Director. The Second-Hand Mobile Clinic: Dr. Stefan brought RAR’s very first mobile clinic—a second-hand vehicle—to Bucharest. The "Spayathon" Model: For nearly a decade, Dr. Stefan and a tiny team of veterinarians traveled across rural Romania. They operated out of makeshift field clinics, gyms, and the backs of vans to provide high-volume, high-quality sterilizations. The Homeless Animal Hospital Program: During this mobile era, they realized that street animals needed more than just spaying; they needed orthopedics, trauma care, and emergency medicine. This led to the creation of the Homeless Animal Hospital (HAH) program, which initially operated out of a small base clinic in Craiova.
Building the Center of Hope (2015–2017)
Relying entirely on mobile units and scattered clinics limited the number of critical cases the team could save. The dream of a permanent, centralized facility began around 2015. The Land Gift: Dr. Aurelian Stefan and his brother, Dr. Petrisor "Pepe" Stefan, donated their family grandmother's land in Piteasca (just outside East Bucharest) to serve as the physical footprint for the project. The "5,000 Bricks" Campaign: Construction was heavily crowdfunded via social media. The project literally started with individual donors buying "bricks" online, which RAR then used to purchase physical construction materials. The Grand Opening: In Spring 2017, the Center of Hope officially opened its doors as Romania's first purpose-built social animal hospital. It launched with just six employees.
Expansion & Modern Infrastructure (2022–Present)
The hospital was designed not just to treat animals, but to scale the entire veterinary profession in Eastern Europe. Green Technology Integration: The campus was built entirely with eco-friendly infrastructure, incorporating solar panels and electric-vehicle charging to reduce long-term operational overhead. The 2022 Expansion: In October 2022, RAR opened a massive extension to the hospital. This added a specialized, high-volume castration center and a state-of-the-art training center, alongside sterile surgery suites, intensive care units, and digital X-ray labs. The Veterinary Training Camp: A major historical milestone of the facility is its educational impact. Through its specialized training camp, the center has trained nearly 700 young veterinarians from Romania and across the globe in advanced, low-cost, high-efficiency keyhole surgical techniques. As of 2026, the hospital has grown from its original six staff members to a team of 23 professionals. Collectively, the historical efforts of the RAR dream team have resulted in nearly 160,000 subsidized or free sterilizations, fundamentally altering the stray-animal equation in Romania.
