Maddie's Fund - Press Room

(Alameda, CA - January 2005) Maddie’s Fund,® the Pet Rescue Foundation (www.maddiesfund.org), has awarded $524,985 to support the first year of Maddie’s® Pet Rescue Project and Maddie’s® Spay/Neuter Project in Mobile, Alabama. As goals are achieved, Maddie’s Fund will provide Mobile animal welfare groups and veterinarians with up to $4.6 million to end the killing of healthy and treatable shelter dogs and cats within ten years.

Working together towards one common goal, Mobile’s lifesaving projects are administered by two different organizations operating under separate Maddie’s Fund grants:

Maddie’s® Pet Rescue Project is led by the Mobile SPCA, a predominantly volunteer organization founded in 1885. Project partners include the Animal Rescue Foundation and Friends of the Mobile Animal Shelter, along with the City of Mobile Animal Shelter, Mobile County Animal Shelter and Saraland Animal Shelter.

The Mobile SPCA has received a first year grant of $271,245 to increase adoptions by 845 over the previous year’s baseline and to decrease the number of dogs and cats euthanized in Mobile shelters by 845.

Maddie’s® Spay/Neuter Project is administered by the Alabama Veterinary Medical Association (ALVMA). Surgeries will be performed by participating private practice veterinarians.

Maddie’s® Spay/Neuter Project has a first year goal of 4,229 surgeries. The ALVMA plans to reach this goal by offering Mobile’s Medicaid recipients dog spays and neuters for $20 and cat spays or neuters for $10 for the pets of. A first year grant of $253,740 has been awarded to the ALVMA to administer the project and help underwrite the cost of the surgeries.

Maddie’s® Pet Rescue and Maddie’s® Spay/Neuter Projects in Mobile are significant additions to the four year investment Maddie’s Fund has made in Alabama.

From 2001-2003, Maddie’s Fund supported Maddie’s® Big Fix for Alabama, a statewide spay/neuter program for Alabama’s low-income pet owners. A $2.5 million grant administered by the Alabama Veterinary Medical Association resulted in 36,046 spay/neuter surgeries through the participation of more than 700 private practice veterinarians.

In 2002, Maddie’s Fund hired Alabama animal activist, Lynne Fridley, as Maddie’s Fund Field Representative to oversee projects in Alabama and in the Southeast. Lynne had been President of the Alabama Humane Federation and Executive Director of the Chilton County Humane Society.

And in 2004, Maddie’s Fund provided the first installment of a six year $1.5 million grant to Auburn University to establish Maddie’s® Shelter Medicine Program.

“The synergy of these efforts is expected to help animal welfare organizations in Alabama save all of their healthy and treatable shelter pets and bring about a no-kill Alabama within the foreseeable future,” says Maddie’s Fund President, Richard Avanzino.

To follow the progress of Maddie Projects in Alabama, go to: www.maddiesfund.org/projects/comm_projects.

Maddie’s Fund,® The Pet Rescue Foundation (www.maddiesfund.org), is a family foundation funded by PeopleSoft Founder Dave Duffield and his wife, Cheryl, to help create a no-kill nation. The first step is to help build programs that guarantee loving homes for all healthy shelter dogs and cats throughout the country. The next step will be to save the sick and injured pets in animal shelters nationwide. Maddie’s Fund is named after the family’s beloved Miniature Schnauzer who passed away in 1997.

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January 2005