I was at my veterinarian’s office in Nipomo when I overheard a client talking about the Santa Maria Valley Humane Society (SMVHS) and saying it was, “wasting tax dollars in their big new building.” I knew this wasn’t true, and I hope to correct any public misunderstandings.
The Santa Maria Valley Humane Society is a nonprofit, 501c3 organization, with a board of local volunteers. The new adoption and spay-neuter facility on West Stowell Road was built using individual donations, grant money, and ingenuity—no tax dollars. The design was created years ago by volunteers working with a local architect and contractor. In 2010, suffering from a downturn in the economy, the design was downsized and tweaked as efficiently as possible before breaking ground. Now construction is complete and the new animal shelter belongs to the Santa Maria Valley Humane Society. The land is leased from the city.
The operational funds are dependent on the public making donations to keep the place alive. With completion of the shelter, SMVHS has twice the ability to spay and neuter dogs and cats. It has the ability to adopt out twice as many dogs, and three times as many cats as they did in the old shelter. The euthanasia rates in Santa Maria have tremendously fallen because of this good work.
I feel misunderstandings, such as the one I overheard, may have caused past donors to stop giving. Sure the shelter is large, but so is the growing issue of unwanted dogs and cats. SMVHS needs and deserves the public’s support. Saving two to three times the animals means needing two to three times the income. Operational funds are used for electricity, food, and medical care for the animals, insurance, staff, etc. Local volunteers do much of the work and volunteer board members make sure your donations are managed and used properly.
Like the local people who started this great organization in 1982, the public is the life-blood that keeps SMVHS and the thousands of local homeless animals alive and healthy. Please help and support SMVHS.org.
This article appears in Dec 17-24, 2015.