Finding an injured turtle is often the end of a sad story, but for Courtnie Gregory, it was actually the beginning of a very happy one.

Through the power of planned giving — a gift documented now for the future — Gregory’s turtle story will also continue for many years to come.

Gregory graduated from NC State in 2025 after earning a master’s degree in training and development from the College of Education. She is also a passionate member of the Turtle Rescue Team, which is a student-run veterinary club. The team consists of volunteers, including veterinary students, who work to treat and rehabilitate injured turtles as well as other native reptiles and amphibians.

Gregory had heard of the Turtle Rescue Team before enrolling in her master’s program, but it wasn’t until she came across a turtle at her home that she gained firsthand experience with the organization.

“One day, I went to my backyard, and when I opened my door, there was an eastern box turtle underneath my threshold, almost right in the center,” Gregory said. “I thought, ‘Well, that’s strange,’ and I kind of just moved him over and kept doing what I was doing.”

About an hour later, though, the turtle remained in the same location — jokes about turtles being slow aside, the animal should have moved at least a little in that timeframe.

Gregory decided to look over the turtle and see if she could determine what, if anything, was wrong. Sure enough, its eyes were swollen shut.

Gregory remembered hearing about the Turtle Rescue Team and put in a quick phone call to see if the volunteers could help her little friend. The volunteer who answered asked if Gregory could send photos of the turtle to help the team make an unofficial diagnosis. Her photos confirmed that the turtle would need medical attention, so the volunteer asked if Gregory could bring it by campus.

The Turtle Rescue Team ultimately found that the turtle had an eye infection and would need to undergo rehabilitation for several weeks. Gregory assumed the team would care for the turtle, but to her pleasant surprise, they turned the tables and asked Gregory for assistance.

“I was thinking, ‘That’s it,’ and then they asked, ‘Would you like to help take care of him?’ And I was like, ‘I can do that?’

“I thought, ‘I’m just a regular person.’ I didn’t know that I could help.”

“I thought, ‘I’m just a regular person.’ I didn’t know that I could help.”

Gregory could indeed be of help to the Turtle Rescue Team. She cared for the turtle until it got better, then released the reptile back into the wild.

But her time as a “rehabber” didn’t stop there.

Gregory has served with the Turtle Rescue Team for more than four years now, helping numerous turtles mend from health issues. Her current patient is Cerberus, who was attacked by a dog. Gregory has been caring for Cerberus for quite a while but expects him to eventually make a full recovery.

Taking time out of her busy life during graduate school to care for wounded turtles was already a gracious gesture, but Gregory went above and beyond by building an online course for new rehabbers. Volunteers must now take the course before they can begin caring for turtles on their own.

“It’s all they need to know,” Gregory said. “Your basic turtle info: what to feed them, how to house them, what kind of behaviors are normal/abnormal, what kind of issues are urgent and you need to call the Turtle Rescue Team right now, or issues that need to be brought up but you can email. Just kind of teaching what you need to do in whatever situation as a rehabber.”

As impactful as this course has already been, Gregory wants to make an even bigger mark on the Turtle Rescue Team. That recently led her to include the organization in her long-term financial arrangements via a planned gift to NC State.

Why a planned gift, also known as an estate or legacy gift? Gregory said the decision resulted from some fatherly advice.

“My dad is very much into getting everything together, making sure you have your will,” Gregory said. “It was the first time I had done all of that, and I was just thinking, ‘OK, what is important to me?’”

Without a will in place or a relative still living upon her passing, Gregory’s estate would have defaulted to the state of North Carolina to be used for general purposes. Now, through her planned gift, Gregory’s remaining funds will instead go to support something near and dear to her heart.

Better still, supporting the Turtle Rescue Team via a planned gift means Gregory’s standard of living won’t be affected in the present because the gift, while documented now, won’t actually take place until after Gregory’s passing — an important point considering today’s volatile economic conditions.

Turtle Team to the rescue. Again.

“I really like what [the Turtle Rescue Team] is doing, and I want to give back to that because I know the volume of patients they treat is so high,” Gregory said.

Sadly, that high volume is only expected to increase in the coming years.

Gregory is fascinated by turtles’ resilience, but she is also quick to point out that the ever-increasing urbanization taking place in and around Raleigh makes it harder and harder for them to survive. More housing developments mean less natural habitat for turtles to occupy. More automobiles mean more traffic collisions with turtles trying to cross roadways in order to access what little habitat is left.

Worst of all, because turtles really are very resilient, they often survive their initial injuries merely to suffer along those roadways for extended periods of time. Other native reptiles and amphibians are similarly affected by the fragmentation of Raleigh’s landscape.

While the Turtle Rescue Team’s staff is made up of volunteers, and while its efforts are free of charge, that doesn’t mean there aren’t substantial costs associated with treating the animals. The team needs medical gloves, adhesive dressings, bandage wraps and more to care for its patients. There are also the folders, printers, file baskets and other office supplies required for keeping records on all of the animals.

Throw in the animals’ food, heat mats and other necessities, and the cost of running the Turtle Rescue Team quickly adds up.

Thankfully, supporters such as Gregory are willing to put in the time, effort and even money to make the organization’s work possible. Planned giving, in particular, ensures that veterinarians-in-training can continue to help these animals far into the future — all while getting invaluable hands-on experience for their postgraduate careers.

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For more information about the Turtle Rescue Team and how you can further its mission, visit go.ncsu.edu/turtlesupport. To learn more about how you can make a planned gift benefiting the Turtle Rescue Team — or any other area of NC State — visit the Office of Gift Planning’s website at ncsugift.org.