The Peninsula SPCA is competing for thousands of dollars in grants for their shelter
NEWPORT NEWS— The Peninsula Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has entered a challenge to help save the lives of more animals in their facility.
The first phase of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) 100K Challenge kicked off April 4, and will run through April 15. It's the qualifying heat, where shelters that get the most votes from the community move on to compete for thousands of dollars in grants.
During this phase, people in the community can go online to http://www.votetosavelives.org and vote for their favorite shelter. The top 50 shelters with the most votes out of the 93 that are competing will move on to the next phase of the competition.
"The second phase of the competition is where the real work begins," said Vicki Rowland, marketing director at the Peninsula SPCA. "During this phase, we have to save at least 300 more animals during the months of August, September and October than we did in the previous year.
The prizes the Peninsula SPCA is competing for will help the shelter with its day-to-day duties.
"We're participating in the competition because we want to increase adoptions in our shelter, increase the quality of care for our animals and return more lost animals back to their owners," Rowland said.
Currently, the shelter houses more than 150 animals, and has the capacity to hold 243.
"We're always creatively thinking of ways of how we can move forward and do better for our animals," Rowland said.
The Peninsula SPCA is hoping, with enough votes and participation from the community, to win the $25,000 Community Engagement Award. The award will be given to the shelter that gets the most community members involved in adopting animals.
In total, the shelter could win between $3,000 and $130,000 in prizes.
"We win regardless in this competition, whether we receive the money or not, because we'll be working with the community to save more lives," said Rowland. "It's not about the money for us, it's about saving more animals, and this challenge acts as a good motivator for us to do that, and helps garner more attention for the shelter."
As of Friday, the Peninsula SPCA had 1,165 votes, ranking them 56th out of 93 shelters.
The Peninsula SPCA is one of only two Virginia shelters registered for the 100K Challenge. The other is the Roanoke Valley SPCA.
"We definitely need the community's help. We need them in order for us to rise to the challenge," Rowland said. "We're really encouraging everyone in the community to participate in some way, whether it's voting online or coming to the shelter and adopting an animal."
The shelter has seen an increase in owner surrenders recently, which makes doing well in the competition even more important to them.
"There's a high cost that's associated with caring for the animals we have on a day-to-day basis," said Rowland. "The last thing we want is to have to euthanize an animal because we don't have the space for them."
One of the ways the Peninsula SPCA is combating this problem is with their Live Pet Webcams. The webcams allow people to see the animals at the shelter, without ever having to step foot in the SPCA.
"Our doggy webcams are helping us raise awareness of all the special animals we have for the public to see, and hopefully adopt into their homes," Rowland said.
Another area the prize money could help with is in the shelter's journey to become an Adoption Guarantee Organization. As an Adoption Guarantee Organization, the Peninsula SPCA would commit to save all of the healthy and treatable animals, reserving euthanasia only for unhealthy or untreatable animals.
The shelter is already making changes to become an Adoption Guarantee Organization, with the board of directors recently adopting a plan that eliminates the use of SPCA facilities and services for animal control purposes by July 2013, according to their website. The change will allow SPCA officials to focus more on their mission of finding permanent adoptive homes for all of their animals.
The shelter will know if they've made it to the next phase of the competition April 18.
"We've saved 30,524 pets since July 2004, so together we are making a difference," Rowland said. "If we can get the community involved with this challenge, we can do even more for the animals we have now, and those that will be coming into the shelter."
How you can help
•Visit http://www.votetosavelives.org to cast your vote for the Peninsula SPCA. Voting is open from 9 a.m. to midnight every day, and multiple e-mail addresses are accepted on the site, allowing people to vote more than once per day.
•Anyone without access to a computer can come to the Peninsula SPCA to cast their vote. The SPCA is located on 523 J. Clyde Morris Blvd. in Newport News.
•Visit http://challenge.aspcapro.org for more information on the challenge. Visit http://www.peninsulaspca.org or call 595-1399 to find out how you can help the SPCA.
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