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| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 28, 2009
CONTACT: Marie Edwards
Ten Lives Club Founder
(716)646-5577
MADDIE’S FUND® TO AWARD $5,000,000
TO ERIE COUNTY, NY COALITION
Erie County to Receive Award Over Five Years to Save All Healthy
and Treatable Cats and Dogs; Project Partners
Consist of Animal Welfare Groups, Spay/Neuter Clinic
Maddie’s Fund® The Pet Rescue Foundation (www.maddiesfund.org)
has announced that it will award a $501,550 grant beginning
October 1, 2009 to support the first year of a multi-year community project
targeted at guaranteeing a home for every healthy and treatable
dog and cat abandoned in Erie County, NY. An additional
approximately $177,600 will be dedicated to the sterilization of feral cats,
and of cats owned by income-qualified residents.
As goals are achieved, Maddie’s Fund® will provide approximately $5 million
over the course of five years to help Erie County project partners
continue fulfilling these objectives for the cats and dogs of the community.
Maddie’s® Pet Rescue Project Partners include Buffalo Humane; the City of
Buffalo Animal Shelter; HEART Inc.; Second Chance Sheltering Network, Inc.;
Ten Lives Club; and lead agency, the SPCA Serving Erie County. Maddie’s®
Spay/Neuter Project Partners include OperationPETS, the
Spay/Neuter Clinic of Western New York Inc., and at the present time
ten local veterinary clinics: Akron Animal Hospital, All Creatures Animal Hospital,
Aurora Park Animal Clinic, Boston Valley Animal Hospital,
Cheektowaga Veterinary Hospital, City Creatures Animal Hospital,
East Aurora Veterinary Hospital, Ellicott Small Animal Hospital, Lancaster
Small Animal Hospital, and Transit Valley Animal Hospital.
Over the course of the first year, project goals include increasing
the number of dogs and cats adopted from participating organizations,
maintaining a total of zero healthy dogs and cats euthanized by participating
organizations, and decreasing the number of treatable dogs and cats
euthanized in Erie County. Sterilization assistance will be provided
to income-qualified pet owners and to feral cats.
Erie County, NY is just the ninth county in the country to
receive this collaborative community grant.
“Traditionally, the five-year goal of Maddie’s® Pet Rescue Project is
that no healthy dog or cat in a community is euthanized,” says SPCA Executive
Director Barbara Carr. “Thanks to partner agencies and our community
members, we predict that Erie County is less than one year away from reaching that
goal. Our project partners have pledged that the customary ten-year goal of
the project, that of euthanizing no healthy NOR TREATABLE dog or cat,
will be reached in five years. There is no doubt that, with our caring community
acting as the eighth project partner, this goal will be reached, earning our ]
community this generous grant.”Carr adds,“The Maddie’s® Pet Rescue Project
community grant is revolutionary. It is a testimony to the tremendous work our
caring community and our project partners have already completed, and will
advance…a testimony to just how much this community loves its animals.”
About Maddie's Fund
Maddie's Fund®, The Pet Rescue Foundation, (www.maddiesfund.org) is a
family foundation funded by Workday and PeopleSoft Founder Dave Duffield and his wife, Cheryl.
Maddie's Fund is helping to create a no-kill nation where all healthy and t
reatable shelter dogs and cats are guaranteed a loving home.To achieve this goal,
Maddie’s Fund is investing its resources in building community collaborations
where animal welfare organizations come together to develop successful
models of lifesaving; in veterinary colleges to help shelter medicine become part of the
veterinary curriculum; in private practice veterinarians to encourage greater participation
in the animal welfare cause; and in the implementation of national strategies
to collect and report shelter statistics.
Maddie’s Fund is named after the family’s beloved Miniature Schnauzer
who passed away in 1997.
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