We understand that times are hard, the national economy has finally hit Arkansas and folks are scared. But we truly need you to understand that as these times hit our area, we are hit even harder. The call for our services increases and the funds we have to work on decrease. This is not a situation that will allow us to keep the doors open.
We try daily to put a happy face on our situation as we answer everyone's questions as to how the re-build is going, how the animals are doing, how our own personal health and attitudes are coping with an ever increasing work load. Our motivation remains very high, we sincerely believe in the work we do from taking in as many strays and unwanted pets as we possibly can to developing still new programs to help pet owners to be able to keep their beloved four legged family members rather than be forced to relinquish them to a shelter and given to a new family because of personal family crisis and economic hardships as well as to our Service Pets for Vets program which will provide service dogs and therapy animals to returning disabled veterans and training to those who want a career in animal welfare. Programs such as these we wholeheartedly feel are truly needed, not just in our own small communities but, nationwide. These programs reach out to those people who truly need help during these times. These people also are those who are themselves the caring individuals we see consistently opening their wallets and purses and giving money that truly they cannot afford to give. This happens almost daily while those who can afford, even during these hard economic times, to give, continue to walk on by. While there are about 5 or 6 folks in this area who really can afford to give and that do, it is, in all sincerity, only by the generosity of those who cannot afford to support this organization that we survive. Folks, YOUR SPCA receives no financial aid from any state or federal agency. We have asked for and been refused assistance from the national organizations who send you cute calendars and fancy address labels to misguide you into believing that they help small shelters around the country like this one. They do not. As a non-profit, we literally operate from hand to mouth on a daily basis. Each month, the bills become due once again and we are forced to look at them with a $0 balance in our bank account. That is why you see us out there every week with our "begging buckets" asking for as Jenny says, "Pennies for Pups?" We are always nearly brought to tears as an elderly person brings a plastic bag full of pennies and says "It's all have but I've been saving them for you" or a child turns and asks her mother for her allowance to give to help care for the dogs. We cherish these gifts as we see the smiles of those who truly understand the feeling of giving and of knowing they have done what they could to help those that are in a still worse situation than themselves. The fact is that as much as these gifts are so truly appreciated and sincerely needed to keep our doors open, we still are forced personally, Jenny and myself to give nearly everything we have to the shelter each month to see the bills are paid and the dogs and cats who simply must see a vet get the attention they need, although these costs are not passed on in our adoption fees. My own social security check is $750 a month. This month, May, the shelter needed $700 of that to keep the lights on, the water flowing, and all of the other things the shelter needed. Jenny, much to my own dismay, cashed in her savings account of $3,000 and gave every cent to our rebuilding project. Why? Because it is needed. Some of that $3,000 went to replace other things that we cannot do without like the 6th printer we've worn out this year and to buy a storage shed like the ones we've been asking for now for over 6 months. We see things like the storage sheds and cinder blocks sitting unused all around the area as we drive here and there to pick up yet another stray or unwanted pet, yet even though they are beginning to rust, we still hear, "Oh, I may find a use for that someday". Folks Please, the use is right now, right here, today. Things like those on our needed items list are things that can keep us from having to try to figure out how I will personally make it through the month on $50, or others who believe in what we are doing that already give 12 - 16 hours a day 7 days a week to the effort, must feel obligated to give their entire savings because the work must go on yet the money is simply not there. When we say "It all adds up" as people drop a pocket full of change into the jug, or "Small gifts can do Big Things" we are truly serious as we add them together to see the work we do for these homeless pets, and those people who need help get what they need. A monthly $10 donation is not enough to truly be felt by any family, yet added with 4 or 5 other $10 monthly donations, is enough to pay for the maintenance on a vehicle so when the next person calls and says "Oh you have to come pick it up" (40 miles away) we can do so, or to pay for having one of the dogs spayed or neutered before it is placed up for adoption and sent to a new home.
Please understand, none of us who do this job are beggars, or used to being forced to sit outside a storefront somewhere and plead for money to keep our work going, but it is something that each of us realize we must do if we are to continue. Please understand that those of you who give to a national organization such as the Humane Society of the United States or the ASPCA, do not help your local shelters with even one cent of what you've given. Not one of your local shelters, the Humane Societies, the Louis Animal Foundation, Perry's Orphans, the SPCA, or any of the others who work so hard to help however they feel they can, receives even a single penny from those big organizations who in reality lie to you to get your donations which are in fact used only to promote their own agendas somewhere far from where the problems are locally.
The hard fact is, at this time, we have only 6 kennels that we were able to salvage from the ice storm that are functional, (not good - just functional) plus 4 we have been able to purchase and 2 that have been donated, making a total of 12. We currently have 29 dogs and puppies on site in those kennels, 27 of these available for adoption. The same goes for the cats, 6 cages, 15 cats and kittens at this time. AND we are committed to taking yet another 20 cats and another dog just as soon as humanly possible... One gentleman has been calling every week for the last 4 weeks trying to be patient and allow us time to get an open space for a stray that he is caring for until we can take it. We have room right now, to build 48 more kennels. We do not have the money to do so.
Folks we have to have your help to keep going. We know that there are so many good people in our communities who care about the plight of strays, abused, neglected and abandoned pets and of an elderly person who only has their small companion animal to talk to for days at a time. We know that there are so many people in our area that do in fact, believe in our dedication and the changes that we are working for not only in our cities and counties, but also our state. Please... we desperately need you to make your donations even when we can't get out there to ask for them because of weather or some other happening. We are in desperate need of monthly members who will commit to whatever they can reasonably afford to give whether it be $1 or $100. Please become a monthly member by snail mail: SPCA, 51 Carmelkat Ln, Flippin, AR 72634, or you can donate here on the website through any of the "Help the SPCA" buttons, or you can donate using your credit card by phone, call 870-453-7249.
Those who watch the site know we do not ask for donations/help in the manner shown here. We are in a desperate situation and truly in need of your help right now. Please give what you can.
Thank you all so very much,
Charlie Campbell, President, SPCA