Saving more pets’ lives could bring $100,000 to Angels for Animals

By CHRISTINE DARIN

TheNewsOutlet.Com

CANFIELD

Kelly Black, feline manager and foster coordinator for Angels for Animals, walks through the facility, showing room after room of animals.

She ends the tour in a small room filled with cages on the second floor: the overflow room.

Cats stick their paws out to play. Each cage is occupied.

“When this room fills up, I know I’m in trouble,” Black said. “That’s when I have to start making hard decisions.”

If Black can’t find the cats a home, she will have to start choosing which ones to euthanize.

The need to raise awareness and money for the hundreds of animals in the center’s care is a never-ending task. Animals suffering from abuse and neglect arrive every day.

Odysseus, an orange female cat, was brought to Angels for Animals in June with one eye surgically removed and a serious infection in the other. The shelter removed the remaining eye, and now she waits patiently to be adopted.

Odysseus, eager for affection, relies on her other senses as she easily makes her way through Black’s office to jump on any visitor’s lap.

Black said the shelter is always looking for new ways to raise funds for the facility. This year it entered the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals 100K Challenge.

During August, September and October, ASPCA challenges 50 animal welfare agencies to try to save at least 300 additional animals lives than each did during the same months in 2010.

Angels for Animals competed with 94 animal welfare agencies across the country in April to be one of the 50 agencies to face off for the challenge.

The facility with the largest increase in lives saved above 300 will win the grand prize grant of $100,000. Second place will receive $25,000 and a $20,000 best-in-region grant will be given to the largest increase in saves within five regions throughout the United States.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.