The Guthrie Animal Shelter is in the process of going to the next level.
Starting on Friday, Rescue U with approximately sixty college students from Delaware Valley College and Montgomery County Community College in PA, the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University, descended upon Guthrie to help rebuild and rehabilitate the shelter in just eight days.
The shelter was destroyed in the Guthrie May 24th Guthrie tornado this year.
According to Guthrie City Manager Matt Mueller, Rescue U volunteers will focus on building an outdoor-cat play area, a new storage facility, new puppy pens, three adult exercise pens, a meet-and-greet area, build roofs over the outdoor dog kennels, install new cat cages and new appliances, as well as conducting general repairs. All this will take place while the construction firm, Diversified Labor & Construction, completes the rebuild of the new shelter building.
These students are part of the Petfinder.com Foundation’s Rescue U program and will be funded by The Animal Rescue Site in the amount of $65,000. An additional $10,000 grant will be provided to the shelter for food and veterinary assistance. Since 2007, Rescue U has been giving students the skills they need to improve the living conditions for shelter animals. Rescue U program manager, Dr. Bryn Donnelly, recruited O.U. and O.S.U. students for the project this fall, and will be training these students to continue Rescue U’s mission working with other local shelters in the near future.
In conjunction with the build, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) will participate in Rescue U’s Education Day on January 2nd. The ASPC will speak to students and local animal welfare workers about disaster preparedness and how to handle large-scale animal seizures.
This trip is made possible by the generosity of the Petfinder.com Foundation, The Animal Rescue Site, and Animal Lifeline. “It takes all of us working together to complete these intense projects,” says Dr. Bryna Donnelly, Program Manager for the Petfinder.com Foundation and Rescue U. Donnelly continues, “We couldn’t do it without everyone, but everyone involved realizes the importance of each project to the lives of homeless animals.”
We are extremely excited for this project and look forward to the completion of the Animal Shelter re-build project.
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