(Alameda, CA-September 2000). Maddie's Fund, a pet rescue foundation whose goal is to help animal shelters throughout the nation establish community-wide adoption guarantees for healthy cats and dogs, announced today that it has awarded $61,000 to support the first phase of the Lodi Pet Saving Connection. The Lodi Pet Saving Connection is a community collaboration whose mission is to end the killing of adoptable cats and dogs in Lodi, California within five years. As goals are achieved, Maddie's Fund will make approximately one half million dollars available to the project.
The collaboration's lead agency is the no-kill rescue group Animal Friends Connection (AFC). AFC is joining forces with Lodi Animal Services, all eight of Lodi's private veterinary hospitals and four surrounding Clinics to achieve the goal of a city-wide adoption guarantee for healthy cats and dogs.
In 1999, 2,833 cats and dogs were impounded by Lodi's rescue and animal control agencies; 1,318 were saved. Of the animals who died, approximately 559 were adoptable.
The first year goals of the Lodi Pet Saving Connection are to increase the number of adoptions by 112 over the previous year's baseline; decrease the number of dogs and cats euthanized at Lodi Animal Services by at least 112 below the previous year's baseline; and implement a spay/neuter coupon program to increase surgeries by 560.
Lodi (pop. 60,000) is an agricultural and "bedroom" community located in California's Central Valley, twenty-five miles south of Sacramento. "This is the smallest project we've funded but it fits in nicely with one of the overall goals of Maddie's Fund," says President Richard Avanzino. "We want to support a diversity of coalitions: urban, suburban and rural; large and small; with different socio/economic bases and geographic challenges. We want to give communities across the country a variety of successful models to look at as they move forward with their own plans to save pet lives. Lodi is also a great example of deep community involvement and I think this element will be a key factor in the project's success."
Says Patricia Sherman, President of Lodi's Animal Friends Connection, "We're excited about our Maddie's Fund grant and so is everyone in Lodi. City government, the veterinarians, and the business leaders are all behind us. We're confident we will achieve our goals and the sooner we get started, the sooner Lodi's homeless pets benefit."
