A year ago, when Velvet and Ted Kitzmiller were still nursing injured squirrels, owls and other wild critters in the family room of their Pasadena home, they dreamed of one day caring for their furry friends in a top-notch veterinary clinic.

Yesterday, the couple showed off such a facility to volunteers and supporters, including Anne Arundel County Executive Janet S. Owens. She had helped Noah's Ark Wildlife Center - the Kitzmillers' family room project - find expansive new digs on county-owned land on the Broadneck peninsula.

"A year ago, we had nothing," Velvet Kitzmiller said yesterday at the dedication of a new medical center and nursery, which cost about $45,000 to design and build. Koch Homes Inc. of Annapolis covered the cost of the facility, which includes surgery, isolation and cleaning rooms.

"We had nowhere to go," said Velvet Kitzmiller, recalling her family's housing dilemma. "The bottom line is that without a lot of support, this never would have happened."

Involving the media

When the Kitzmillers learned two summers ago that their landlord wanted them and their animal brood out, they asked Joe Lamp, an Anne Arundel Community College professor, to notify television stations and newspapers. Soon enough, media outlets from Washington and Baltimore picked up the story.

"We needed money and we needed it fast," said Lamp, who with his wife, JoAnn, were named Noah's Ark volunteers of the year yesterday. "After the story ran in a couple of newspapers and on television, the money started rolling in."

The Kitzmillers, who raised about $28,000 last year to help pay for day-to-day operations at the wildlife care center, receive no income from Noah's Ark. Ted Kitzmiller, who shares the responsibility for around-the-clock wildlife emergencies with his wife, also has a home-plumbing business.

Besides financial support, the Kitzmillers received a new home thanks to Owens, who leased a county-owned house to the couple and their teen-age daughter. The family moved into the house, a rancher in the 500 block of Broadneck Road in Annapolis, in June last year. The property, which was sold to the county in 1998 by a woman who wanted it used as a public equestrian center, is slated for a multitude of uses, including athletic practice fields and horseback riding.

The Kitzmillers have said they are happy to share the property with others. Ted Kitzmiller said that their goal in relocating was to stay in an urban area of the county, where wild animals are more at risk from minivans, family pets and children with pellet guns.

Veterinarian's views

Dr. Amy Holstein, a Crofton veterinarian who has worked with Noah's Ark for about a decade, said yesterday that the center will enable vets like her to operate on the premises. Dr. Karena von Hassel, who also works with the Kitzmillers, said that injured wild animals often die en route to veterinary clinics.

"This is the best part," von Hassel said, sitting in the surgery room, a bright space filled with medical supplies donated by local veterinary clinics. "If we don't have to transport the animals, it means less stress and a better chance of survival."

Down the hall, in an area that was off-limits to humans yesterday, a couple of squirrels lounged in a wire cage amid soft towels. Peering through a window to the room, von Hassel said the squirrels were lucky.

"It's good to have a place in the county like this to take these animals," she said.

To contact the center about injured, ill or orphaned wildlife, call 410-626-7700.