Free workshops and other services gain further funding due to grant
Animal shelters across the nation have blended into the fabric of many communities. Like a gas station or a convenience store, we expect these places to be there, available to us. Shelters are a place where we find a pet, a normal addition to any home. However, like anything we expect to be present in our everyday lives, an entity’s meaning and the work involved to make its presence permanent can be forgotten.
The Animal Welfare Association has been present in Voorhees for 70 years, and Maya Richmond, the association’s director since 2009, said “compassion matters.”
Richmond was not only referring to how humans should treat animals but how she believes the human-animal bond helps create a more empathetic and tender global community.
“Intangible” is the way she described the importance of the relationship between human and animals.
This relationship and AWA’s belief in it transpires through the organization’s Engage, Educate and Enrich diversion program.
The aim of this program is to keep animals in the homes of those who feel their only option is to surrender their pet to a shelter due to a plethora of reasons. Through donations and volunteer work, this program consists of free workshops, the Vet on Wheels program, in-school pet education programs, a call center hotline, a pet pantry that provides free pet food and more.
Earlier this month, AWA received a $15,000 grant from the Michele and Agnese Cestone Foundation, Inc. to support the diversion program.
Richmond said AWA’s initiative to keep pets in the home is expensive, and this grant will allow AWA to continue to assist pet owners keep their pets.
According to stats gathered by AWA from the Animal Alliance of Camden County, “pet problems” such as pets getting too large, aggressive behaviors and medical issues account for 47 percent of rehomed dogs and 42 percent of rehomed cats.
The AWA offers free workshops that help educate owners about these issues and more in attempts to reduce the number of surrendered animals.
“The diversion program is all about ‘what does that pet family need to keep the pet in the home?’” Richmond said.
Richmond said along with expensive medical problems and other issues, she hears a lot of concerns about how to approach a potential landlord about pets, or how to introduce a baby to a pet. Aging pets also have pushed some owners to consider surrendering. However, AWA takes these concerns and encourages people to take a free educational workshop before making a decision to part with an animal.
“These workshops are no cost to people. Donations support it, we don’t charge for any of the programs that we offer,” she said.
AWA does this, Richmond said, “So [pet owners] can keep their pet they have had for so long.”
The grant will also assist with the mobile vet cart that makes weekly trips to Camden with discounted pet products.
Richmond explained that over the last five years, the numbers of dogs permanently surrendered has dropped significantly. According to numbers compiled by Animal Alliance of Camden County, in 2017 alone, of 825 dogs relinquished to various shelters in Camden County, 696 were eventually returned to owners.
“I’m amazed by the progress made in the last five years,” she said.
For more information about AWA’s diversion program and other services provided, visit https://www.awanj.org/. Animal Welfare Association is a private, no-kill shelter.
