The Justin Animal Alliance is on a mission to educate the public about the importance of spaying and neutering their pets.
JAA co-founder Shelley Soniat said, while having pets fixed has been advocated for a long time, it is now at a critical point, a lesson she learned when she discovered a starving dog with a litter of eight puppies one December day on a rural road in southwestern Denton County.
“With the way the economy has been for the last two years, it is important now more then ever,” Soniat said. “There are more people putting their animals up for adoption, less people adopting and more and more people are just having a hard time financially to do the right thing and get their animals spayed/neutered.”
Thanks to the efforts of the JAA, that dog and her litter survived, but countless others are dying as a result of abandonment and malnutrition each year, and organization’s like the JAA are really just overwhelmed.
“We tried to meet the needs of the area, but we simply do not have the resources to take in that many animals or the volunteers to care for them on a daily basis,” Soniat said. “For this reason, we decided to change our focus to combat a much larger problem; the number of homeless animals that are euthanized on a daily basis due to animal overpopulation.
“We decided to host a yearly silent auction to raise funds for the residents of Justin, Argyle, Northlake, Roanoke, Ponder, Haslet, New Fairview, Rhome, and Keller, to help those in financial need spay and neuter their dogs and cats.”
The JAA will be having its first annual silent auction this November, and Soniat said the main thing they can use is people.
“We need volunteers—people’s time is valuable,” Soniat said. “We could use more help. We need help with the animals we have taken in, but we also need to have a group of dedicated volunteers to head the fund raising efforts for the yearly silent auction.
“We would love to hear from people who have headed committees such as the one we will be putting together and would especially love to hear from people who would like to be on our committee of fund raising volunteers.”
Soniat said people can also make donations to the JAA, and said they chose this particular type of fundraiser for a couple of reasons.
“We felt that having a silent auction was the way to go because people could donate their goods and/or services and receive a tax receipt for their donations,” Soniat said. “And people who bid on the items/services can benefit from what their neighbors have to offer. It felt like more of a win/win situation.”
Visit http://justinanimalalliance.blogspot.com/p/low-cost-spay-and-neuter-information.html to read the JAA’s blog and learn more about the organization.
Call 940-343-7848 or email [email protected] to learn how to volunteer or make a donation.
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