St. Andrews Optimists recently hosted Jack Sloan as their breakfast speaker. Sloan is the Director of Development for Pawmetto Lifeline.
He serves with a large formal staff, eight veterinarians, and at one time or another more than 800 volunteers. The overall goal of the facility is giving its animals safe, happy homes and beginning their new adopted lives in good health. Those health concern include all proper inoculations, spay/neuter surgeries as needed, and dental treatment. Pawmetto is nearing a statistical designation as a no-kill facility. To reach that level, euthanasias must be at 10 percent or less.
Pawmetto has a fleet of four Care-a-Vans that deploy around the Midlands almost every day to serve as mobile vaccine clinics. The in-house surgical team is nearing 100 spay/neuter procedures a day.
In addition to its facility capacity of 300 animals at any one time, Pawmetto sponsors a very active Fostering program. In these settings animals are placed with caring families who provide a calming influence. Often, those relationships transition to formal adoptions. Typically there are about 150 animals being fostered; however at the time of Sloan’s presentation, that number was at 175. The foster program is a huge help in managing what would otherwise be an over-capacity issue at the facility.
The role of the volunteers is a very important one. Those volunteers spend their time at Pawmetto giving the animals one-on-one attention for play and normal socialization. The animals become accustomed to positive interactions with people on a regular basis.
Pawmetto’s annual budget is about $6.5 million, with none of that funding coming from government sources. Therefore financial support comes entirely from individuals and businesses.
Photo: Optimist President Alan Taylor presents Jack Sloan with a copy of the Optimist Creed.
