The ICARE story
This full-size doggie quilt to be raffled off is continued on the reverse side!
By Lisa Schade
With the 15th annual ICARE fundraising dinner almost at hand (it’s this coming Saturday), we wanted to share a little history on ICARE (Inyo [and Mono] County Animal Resources and Education), a local nonprofit animal welfare organization with no paid employees, no government funding and no rented office space.
It’s s been 15 years since my husband, Ted, and I visited the Inyo County Animal Shelter in Big Pine for the first time. The shelter, an 80-year old block cement dairy barn, was never designed to house cats and dogs. Its outdoor kennels were uncovered during the scorching heat of summer. Ted and I purchased redwood lattice panels and worked with Tim Proffitt and Nancy Smith of Inyo County Animal Services to install them over the kennels to provide some protective shade cover.
As a result of the lattice project, a small group of pet lovers met with Inyo County Animal Services in November 1996 to form ICARE and discuss ways we could raise money to make more improvements to the Animal Shelter. We held our first fundraising dinner in April 1997. No group had ever held an animal welfare fundraiser in Inyo County, so we had no idea whether we would succeed or not. Imagine our amazement when more than 700 people attended the first dinner, raising more than $20,000 to improve living conditions at the shelter!
Additional outdoor kennels were installed with a solid roof, the interior was completely gutted, epoxy coating was applied to the concrete floors and new indoor kennels were installed, as well as all new stainless steel cat kennels.
Outreach is huge part of helping pets find good homes. ICARE promotes Inyo County Shelter animals for adoption via our web site, radio and newspaper ads. Adoptions have risen an impressive 267% during the past decade … 82 animals were adopted in 1996; that figure jumped to 301 in 2010.
Our Low-Cost Spay/Neuter Program, which subsidizes the cost of spay/neuter surgeries has made a big difference in allowing many owners to adopt furry friends. In 2010, a total of 596 cats and dogs were impounded compared to 1,164 in 1996, a 49% decrease.
Since 1998, ICARE has provided spay/neuter surgeries for over 8,000 cats and dogs in need for a total cost to date of $327,000. Each year, ICARE spends around $35,000 on approximately 800 sterilization surgeries for the Eastern Sierra’s cats and dogs. The main goal of all the programs is to lower, if not eliminate, the number of cats and dogs euthanized at the Inyo County Animal Shelter. Last year ended with 110 animals put to sleep versus 1,784 in 1995. That’s a 94% reduction!
This Saturday’s dinner kicks off at 6 p.m. in the Tri-County Fairgrounds’ Charles Brown Auditorium. Enjoy live and silent auctions, KSRW personality Bob Todd, our MC, a 50/50 raffle, and raffle of a full-size doggie quilt courtesy of Quilters in Stitches. Tickets are available in Bishop at Spellbinder Books and at the Booky Joint in Mammoth. Check out pets up for adoption at www.icareforpets.org.
