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Valley animal shelter needs help to win $100K Challenge
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Lynn Mitchell, a board member of Angels For Animals, volunteers at the animal shelter in Canfield. Here, she tends to cats up for adoption.
Adoptable cats at Angels for Animals, which has entered the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals’ 100K Challenge.
How you can help | 100K Challenge
Angels for Animals is competing for a $100,000 grant from the ASPCA. These upcoming events are designed to help it reach its goal of adopting at least 703 animals. For other events go to Angels website: www.angelsforanimals.org.
ASPCA Challenge Kick-off Week: From Aug. 1-7 receive 50 percent off all adoptions.
“Dogs Days of Summer”: Through August when temperatures are forecast to be 90 degrees or higher receive $10 off the adoption fee for on any dog.
“It’s Raining Cats”: Through the month of September when the long-term forecast calls for a 50 percent or more chance of rain receive $10 off the adoption fee on any cat.
Harvest Time Pick of the Crop: Through the month of October bring a pumpkin to the center and receive the weight of the pumpkin off adoption fees up to $50.
Source: Angels for Animals
By CHRISTINE DARIN
TheNewsOutlet.Com
CANFIELD
Kelly Black, feline manager and foster coordinator for Angels for Animals, walks through the shelter, showing room after room of animals.
She ends the tour in the overflow room, a small room filled with cages on the second floor.
Cats stick their paws out to play. Each cage is occupied.
“When this room fills up, I know I’m in trouble,” Black said. “That’s when I have to start making hard decisions.”
If Black can’t find the cats a home, she will have to start choosing which ones to euthanize.
The need to raise awareness and money for the hundreds of animals in the center’s care is a never-ending task. Animals suffering from abuse and neglect arrive every day.
Odysseus, an orange female cat, was brought to Angels for Animals in June with one eye surgically removed and a serious infection in the other. The shelter removed the remaining eye, and now she waits patiently to be adopted.
Odysseus, eager for affection, relies on her other senses as she easily makes her way through Black’s office to jump on any visitor’s lap.
Black said the shelter is always looking for new ways to raise funds for the facility. This year it entered the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals’ 100K Challenge.
During August, September and October, ASPCA challenges 50 animal welfare agencies to try to save at least 300 additional animals lives than each did during the same months in 2010.
Angels for Animals competed with 94 animal welfare agencies across the country in April to be one of the 50 agencies to face off for the challenge.
The facility with the largest increase in lives saved in excess of 300 will win the grand prize grant of $100,000. Second place will receive $25,000 and a $20,000 best-in-region grant will be given to the largest increase in saves within five regions throughout the United States.
Prizes will be announced Nov. 30.
Bert Troughton, vice president of ProLearning ASPCA Community Outreach, said the challenge helps the shelters raise the profile of their organizations.
“It is giving us an opportunity to re-evaluate our programs and expand on our programs,” Black said.
Last year, Angels for Animals saved 403 animals from euthanasia between Aug. 1 and Oct. 31, so the goal for the competition is to save at least 703 cats and dogs.
Actually, Kate McDermott, general manager of Angels for Animals, said the shelter hopes to save 1,000 pets.
“The overall goal is to raise awareness of the need for homes for thousands of animals,” McDermott said.
From Aug. 1-7 , the shelter will feature half-priced adoptions for the ASPCA Challenge Kick-Off Week. Among other upcoming promotions is the “Cat and Dog for a Song and Dance” from Aug. 9-12, during which potential adopters can sing a song and dance to receive a 25 percent discount on an adoption. The shelter plans to display the talent on YouTube.
Other events are the “Study Buddy Back to School Sale,” “Pet and Pajamas,” and “Plinko for Pets” tailored after the game on “The Price is Right.”
Angels for Animals received 2,951 animals dropped off there in 2010, a total that doesn’t include the animals already in-house or in foster homes. The shelter euthanized 2,999 animals and found homes for 1,513 last year.
“We don’t like the numbers, but it’s the reality of the situation,” said Diane Less, co-founder of Angels for Animals.
She said many of the animals are injured or sick and need to be euthanized. But the shelter receives hundreds of viable animals, and the funds don’t exist to spay and neuter, provide housing and care for them all.
Black said the biggest problem is that people don’t get their animals spayed and neutered. During an average kitten season, the shelter can receive 30 to 40 cats a day.
“If we can get everybody fixed, then we don’t have all these unwanted animals anymore,” she said.
If the Angels for Animals shelter wins the challenge, McDermott said the group will use the winnings for the spay/neuter program, updates to the facility and the adoption program.
“I think no matter who wins the challenge, every organization wins because of the greater awareness of the overall issue,” McDermott said.
For people who can’t adopt a pet, there are other ways to help Angels such as monetary donations, or donations of supplies including food, blankets, towels, and newspapers.
The NewsOutlet is a joint media venture by student and professional journalists and is a collaboration of Youngstown State University, WYSU radio and The Vindicator.
Comments
Angels for Animals is a joke. Folks there are so many other deserving facilities out there that can use your help that do not have high kill rates and fancy buildings.
Angels always stated they DID NOT euthanize. Now they claim they do.
All Of Them Do, If They Say They Don't euthanize There A Liar. They Kill More Then They Will Ever Place In a Home, PETA Or PETA Connected Are The Biggest ON Killing Animals. Peta Is Always In The News or Internet about there Kill Rate, AWL They Will Invent Stories To Bust and Take There Animals Then Kill 85-90 % of Them. Why They Want That Money For That New State Of the Art Facility. Most Don't Spay & neuter Before They Leave There Facilities Either.. The Best Thing They Did For Trumbull County is Bringing In the Spay/Neuter Clinic. WE SO NEEDED THAT. I'm using Them Myself, Its Clean, Sterile , The WeinerBargade Inc fought to get them here. This Is The Only Way we Can Stop This Over Population Cats Really are a Huge Problem as Well As All The Dogs Allowed To Roam and Produce More Unwanted Dogs As Well As The High Pit Bull Population .GET YOUR ANIMALS SPAY/ NEUTERED Not Enough Homes For All These Animals, Do Your Animal A Great Justice. Give Them a Choice To Live.
"If Black can’t find the cats a home, she will have to start choosing which ones to euthanize."
It is far better to kill them than to give them away for free . . ..
@cheybaby2.
There is one facility in Columbiana County that does not euthanize. But then again, they are not secretly profiting like the rest, either.
First, Angels For Animals is NO joke! I joined in 1993 when there was no shelter. We volunteers worked very hard to get a "state of the art" shelter built so we could have a vet and surgery on-site. We get no government funding--it was built on donations and tons and tons of fund-raising. Angels has always been a "no-kill" shelter for ADOPTABLE animals, not a sanctuary. Unfortunately, there are always animals that are too sick or feral to be adopted. I can't imagine where anyone thinks that Angels is secrety profiting---THAT'S a joke. I know personally what it takes to run a shelter that size even though I now live in Florida. I have stayed in touch and am still a member. Before you criticize, try spending a few weeks volunteering and you'll see how much work there is and how much good AFA does.
Stan I think you are in over your head
That grey cat will not be free at last unless it makes a run for it . It may very well be numbered for the gas chamber .
pat - All I can add to this is that when I tried to adopt from AFA or turn in a stray, it was more than I could pay. If they really wanted to help these animals they could lower the price for those that can't pay that high cost and these animals would have a loving family instead of a cage and death in the end.
I know it's more work than people know to rescue animals. But I have dealt many times with For the Dogs and New lease on Life and they just seem to really care more about what happens to the animals. They really need the donations since they pay out of their own pockets to bring them back to health and find good homes.
The Angels for Animals facility located on the border of Green and Beaver Townships is home to the largest group of hypocrits I have ever had the displeasure of observing. I remember less than 10 years ago when they advertised as a no kill shelter that would not turn away any animal (unless infected with spreadable diseases such as feline AIDS). They asked the entire community including children in the schools, and walked that pony that bites small children around the fair begging for money to save the animals. Lately I have been hearing rumors of them killing more animals than they placing for adoption and this article proves it. The founder Diane Less Baird has been overheard in public places joyously bragging about the new gas chamber she wants to put in so that she can kill cats by the hundreds. Surrounding neighbors of the facility have been asked to approve such a building. I'm sick of Angels lying to the community, and am sick from all the horror stories of ill and tortured animals that come from their facilities.
There are many true animal shelters that have their hearts in the right place that deserve $100,000 which would actually go to RESCUING animals rather than destroying them. A particular family-run shelter in Columbiana county comes to mind. They take the time to make gold out of the animals in need brought to them rather than throw them straight into the furnace like Angels does.
Boomer you are wrong about Columbiana County too. The County Humane Society has a big fat trust fund they stole off the Salem Area Humane Society. It's all about money with these big supposedly "reputable" shelters.
i have already posted what i think on the preview of this article. however i look here and its just more crap with no credibility. if your gonna whine about no kill then go give your address and all the unwanted animals can live at your house! cant do that,then go volunteer.cant do that, then give a donation. cant do that , then shut it!!! they save as many as they can, but you know what this isnt oz, and there is no happy magic to save everything. myself, i dont want to see something suffer. but it doesent matter what i say, your just gonna sit and eat cheetos and pound away at the keys!! dont worry we'll take care of the mess you made, i volunteer to make a difference!!!