|
The
list is extensive and hardly exhaustive: Grover,
the three-legged beagle mix, Mozart the Great Dane,
Sterling the Persian cat, T.J. the border collie,
Duchess the collie and Shadz the beagle.
These and hundreds
of other injured dogs and cats, owe their lives to
the Animal Rescue & Relief Foundation of Southwestern
Illinois and its volunteers.
For 10 years, Animal
Rescue & Relief
Foundation, or ARRF, has been working hard to raise
enough in donations to help pay for surgeries. Volunteers
are the backbone of the organization, donating their
time and their money to rehab injured animals in their
homes and prepare them for adoption.
When the foundation was formed
10 years ago by Shelley Blumberg, Linda Waltman and
Helga Solych, humane societies typically did not provide
veterinary care for injured animals. It just wasn't
in the budget and healthy, adoptable animals were top
priority.
"Back then, an injured
animal had no chance in a shelter or humane society,
none at all. It would either lay there and die or be
euthanized," said Linda Rayho, president of Animal
Rescue & Relief Foundation. "When ARRF was
started, our mission was to go in to these facilities
and not allow that to happen. We'd go in to find these
animals and take care of them."
Today, most shelters and humane
societies provide medical care if it is needed, but
the number of injured homeless animals is increasing,
and the rescue foundation is still there to make sure
those animals get well enough to find new homes.
In 2004, the group nearly
doubled the number of animals it helped during previous
years. Last year the organization provided aid to almost
250 animals, Rayho reported. The numbers of animals
needing medical care have doubled, but the money from
donations and fund raising has remained about the same.
The organization operates on about $40,000 a year from
donations and a couple of fund-raising auctions. The
money is used to pay for medical bills for injured
strays and for a spay-neuter program the organization
sponsors.
"Things have changed
a lot in the past 10 years," Rayho said. "People
are no longer just driving by injured animals on the
streets, they are picking them up and taking them to
the vet clinics."
Most of the injured animals
that come to rescue foundation have been hit by cars,
Rayho said.
About 50 percent of the animals
aided by the organization are found by good Samaritans
and dropped off at veterinary hospitals. The other
half come from area shelters and humane societies,
Rayho said.
The organization does not
have a facility and does not take in just stray animals,
it only provides care for injured animals and it absolutely
depends on volunteers and foster homes for animals.
"Right now we are really
short on licensed foster homes," Rayho said. "We
have a lot of people who would love to be foster homes,
but they already have three or four pets of their own,
and they are really limited on they number of animals
they can have in a home. It's difficult to find homes
that qualify, and when we do, we keep them for about
two years before they max out because they fall in
love with the foster animals and adopt them. It's been
a real challenge to get the foster homes replaced."
For more information
about Animal Rescue & Relief Foundation or to learn
how to volunteer, call 624-1223.
|
