Nonprofit group helps local animal shelter with grants
Posted on Saturday, September 20, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/bcdr/News/65924/
SILOAM SPRINGS Homeless pets housed at the Siloam Springs Animal Shelter have a new group of best friends called the Tailwaggers.
The group began as an advisory board to the city of Siloam Springs and quickly realized it would not be able to accomplish the goals it wanted unless it split from the city and became a nonprofit. With that realization and after months of wrestling through mountains of paperwork, the Tailwaggers group was formed, said Shelley Govea, president of Tailwaggers.
Armed with its new 501 (c )(3 ) status, Tailwaggers began sniffing out grants to be used for the shelter and community pets, and recently received the groups first grant from Petco.
The $ 1, 000 Petco grant was immediately turned over to Don Clark, manager at the Siloam Springs Animal Shelter. Clark has been using the money to offer half off the spay / neuter program for dogs. The shelter is providing the operations for local dogs at a rate of $ 45 instead of the customary $ 80 and will continue to do so until the funding from the grant runs out.
The biggest problem is people fail to understand the need to spay and neuter their pets, Clark said, citing that one female dog and a single litter of her puppies can produce 67, 000 offspring in their lifetimes.
The goal (of Tailwaggers ) is to raise money for the spay and neuter programming so that Don (Clark ) can offer discounts, and hopefully, he will be able to adopt out more animals that way, Govea said.
Govea has seven dogs of her own, three of which, along with a cat, came from the animal shelter. It is because of them that Govea has worked to start Tailwaggers and has become a champion for adopting pets from local shelters.
Andrea Phillips, another member of Tailwaggers, feels the same way about her dog, Dexter, a collie / Lab mix from the Springdale shelter.
I have always loved animals, and I have a special place in my heart for homeless animals who face their demise if no one adopts them. They are truly innocent. They are helpless, and they just need someone to care for them, so whatever I need to do, I will do it, Phillips said.
Each week, Phillips stops by The Salvation Army and picks up worn-out blankets that are unusable, takes the blankets home, washes them and drops them off at the Siloam Springs Animal Shelter.
It is like a win-win situation. The Salvation Army needs to get rid of (the blankets ), and the animals need them, Phillips said.
Phillips also spends time visiting local grocery stores and picks up broken bags of dog and cat food for the shelter.
Other projects Tailwaggers is looking into include creating a dog park in Siloam Springs and conducting petadoption drives.
The idea behind the dog park is, if there is a place for people to take their dogs to get exercise and to socialize with other dogs or to just show their dogs off, it might encourage them to adopt dogs from the shelter, Phillips said.
Tailwaggers meets at 5: 30 p. m. on the fourth Thursday of every month at the Siloam Springs city library. Anyone who is interested is welcome to attend and to join Tailwaggers. The groups next meeting will be Sept. 25.
The more minds there are, the more (Tailwaggers ) will be able to do, Govea said.