Caring for animals

An animal shelter ran into trouble. MIXfm listeners stepped up to help.

Back before Christmas, we got a call from the Santa Cruz Humane Society. They were running out of food, but had several dozen homeless animals in their care. Adrienne Walker talked about it on the air — and within hours, MIXfm listeners opened their hearts and wallets to help. Here's a thank-you message we got from the Society:

Adrienne,

Hi! I wanted to thank you and 94.9 MIXfm once again for the public announcement made regarding the need for dog food at the Santa Cruz Humane Society. Attached is a photo I took on January 2nd about two weeks after the announcement. They say a picture is worth a 1000 words! In addition to the food in the photo, we received well over $700 in checks for the staff to purchase food. People are still dropping off food.

I personally received a call from the Border Patrol Canine Unit on Christmas Eve to see if they could drop off food that day. The response from the public was tremendous!

MIXfm listeners helped buy all this! Click photo to see large version.

Learn more about Santa Cruz Humane Society

As I mentioned in 2008 we saw an increase of 120% in the in-takes of dogs over 2007. The increase is due to a number of issues, people losing their homes and having to move into apartments, people who lost jobs and can no longer afford a pet, the high cost of animal care and folks who gave up entire litters because they could not find homes for the puppies.

We also saw an increase of 113% in the in-takes of cats in 2008 over 2007. The majority of the increase was due to kittens! This reinforces the need for people to spay and neuter their cats and dogs. The current state of the economy impacts the high numbers of abandoned and unwanted animals throughout the Country.

While the numbers are a sad reminder of our times, I’m happy to say we adopted out 180 dogs in 2008 (28% increase over 2007) and 91 cats in 2008 (22% increase over 2007). The staff does a great job when it comes to the care of all the dogs and cats we have until they are adopted.

Our biggest concern for 2009 is how the economy will continue to impact our in-takes and donations. The staff opened a Thrift Shop in May of 2008 and it has been a big success for the shelter. We continue to see strong sales from all the donations they receive (furniture, appliance, vehicles…..you name it). The thrift shop sales have helped, but we continue to see our overhead rise every year. If you can plug donations for the thrift shop we would greatly appreciate it. Tony coordinates picking up items and we receive many calls for donations from Tucson not just the local communities.

2009 will be a challenge for all non-profits and we’ve got our worked cut out for us this year. It is with the support of people like the folks at Mix 94.9 who make our jobs easier. Thank you for your support!

Regards,

Barb Hahn
Board President