Granite City Illinois No Kill Animal Shelter

No-kill shelter may be headed for the doghouse
By Marissa Vickers
Wednesday, February 6, 2008 8:20 AM CST

The Granite City Association for the Protection of Animals, a no-kill shelter, is in desperate need of donations if the facility is to remain open.

Several renovations have taken or are taking place at the shelter thanks to contributions, however, those monies are specific to the remodeling and refurbishing, and it's the operating costs that are draining the resources.

"Our operating funds were down all of last year, like, ridiculously down," said Lisa Confer, vice president of the APA. "We're not getting the donations. We have some (certificates of deposit) in a bank and we're going to have to cash those in order to keep operating."We don't want to lose it. We're trying to do anything we can. We just need more support from the community and I know a lot of people don't know about us."

Part of the problem with not having enough money is due to the fact that the APA is a no-kill shelter. Because of this reason, the shelter is ineligible for state or federal funding.

"That's the problem -- if we would promise to euthanize them we'd have to agree to keep them for X amount of days and then put them down, and we refuse to do that," said Nancy Hall, president of the APA.

"We get no state or federal (funding) because we're no-kill -- not one dime. We refuse to become a kill shelter just to get state and federal funding."

Hall said the only time the APA will put an animal to sleep is if it is too vicious, therefore, unable to be put up for adoption, or if the animal is sick and nothing can be done to help it.

At any one time there are approximately 75 pets waiting for adoption. Some have been there for months, other for years.

Hall said the monthly operating costs are quite high, as they do have paid employees.

"At a bare minimum our operating expenses are very large. I'm venturing to say between $18,000 and $20,000 a month -- that's for vet bills, utilities, heat, telephones, water, medications, food -- just the everyday things you have to have," Hall said. "The biggest thing is payroll. We have seven employees, we have a vet tech, a manager and then five employees."

She also explained that to wash the bedding for the pets is practically a fulltime job in itself. The APA has an industrial sized washer and dryer that Hall said are both going non-stop.

Hall admitted she is surprised by the fact that most of the facility's donations don't even come from the APAs hometown of Granite City.

"They come from Missouri," she said. "Maybe the people in Granite, or this area, don't realize how much we rely on the donations. (But) I realize times are hard for everybody."

Hall said they are going to have to take the money out of the CDs and hope that more donations come in soon.

After withdrawing the money, "we probably have enough for three months, but then after that, everything would be gone, we'd have nothing to fall back on. If we could get most of the operating expenses from donations then we wouldn't have to take as much" from the emergency funds, Hall said.

"I'm absolutely fearful we're going to shut down. If we can't meet our operating expenses we're going to shut down."

According to their Web site, www.gcapa.org, $5 will feed a cat for a month, $10 will feed a dog, $15 will provide rabies shot for one animal, $500 will pay for a major surgery for one animal, and several other services at varying dollar amounts are listed in between.

Moreover, volunteers are needed as well.

To donate time or some much-needed money, please log onto their website, www.gcapa.org, or mail donations to Granite City APA, P.O. Box 1311, Granite City, IL 62040. The phone number is 931-7030

The shelter is located at 5000 Old Alton Road down the street from the Knights of Columbus Hall.
PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINK AND DONATE ANYTHING FROM $5 THEY EVEN ACCEPT PAYPAL...YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!!
http://www.gcapa.org