LAKE PLACID — A pet can’t repair a house.
But after finding her home battered by Hurricane Harvey, Melodie Martin Griffith found comfort in the love of her six dogs.
“They don’t care if the ceiling’s fixing to fall in. They care that I’m home and I love them and that I’m gonna go out in the backyard and we’re gonna play and we’re gonna be a family,” the Port Lavaca, Texas, resident told the Press-Republican.
It’s that sense of stability and family that Griffith is working to provide to Calhoun County pet owners through volunteering with the nonprofit Calhoun County Humane Society.
That mission gained a tremendous boost through the recent delivery of pet food and supplies donated by North Country residents.
DONATIONS
The deliveries were organized by the Lake Placid-based Joshua Fund Dog Rescue, which put out a call for donations earlier this month to help Texas animal aid groups after Hurricane Harvey.
The 501(c)3 nonprofit primarily works to rescue dogs from high-kill shelters in the southern United States, make sure they are healthy and vaccinated and help adopt them out to new families.
Donations for the supply drive were so overwhelming that Joshua Fund volunteers began struggling to find the space to store them.
Within 12 hours of putting the word out, a delivery van used by the nonprofit was completely filled, with more donations coming in.
Joshua Fund co-founder Dan Bain opened the stockroom of his Lake Placid deli, the Adirondack Corner Store, for storage but that was also quickly filled.
“We couldn’t even operate, there was so much stuff in there,” Bain said.
HAVE ENOUGH
Bain co-owns the deli and co-founded the Joshua Fund with Ken Hanauer.
The storage pressure was relieved by the arrival of a van from Lake Canyon, Texas-based J.G. Transport for Pets.
The vehicle was transporting shelter dogs from Texas to New York as part of the Joshua Fund’s routine dog rescue efforts.
“They took a substantial amount of donations with them as well,” Bain said.
Thanking all the donors, Bain said that the Joshua Fund has ended the supply drive and was no longer accepting donations.
The Texas-based groups that the drive was supporting reported receiving overwhelming amounts of supplies from the Joshua Fund and others.
“They have enough at this point,” Bain said.
Another final delivery run for the rest of the donations is planned for this weekend.
'THAT ONE CLEAN TOWEL'
Volunteers at the Calhoun County Humane Society have distributed more than 50 tons of pet food, Griffith said.
For any donors who worry that a bag of pet food offers little help against the devastation of Hurricane Harvey, Griffith firmly explained that those donations can mean the world for a struggling family.
“They mean so much more than people will ever know,” she said.
For families looking to their budgets to replace entire homes lost to the storm, a donated bag of food might be the difference between keeping a beloved family pet or giving it up to a shelter.
“If we can keep a pet within the family by giving them a bag of food or two, that’s what we’re gonna do,” she said.
That’s along with donations of other supplies such as collars, leashes and blankets.
Having had no electricity to run her washing machine when she first came home, Griffith knows that clean linens can be luxuries during flood recoveries.
“People gave from their hearts but they will never know what it means to someone to have that one clean towel, that one little blanket that your pet can lay on,” she said.
“It sounds silly but, you know, it’s $2 for a blanket, but it means more than $2.”
MICROCHIPS
Along with distributing food and supplies, the Humane Society is working to re-home pets displaced by the hurricane.
Twenty-five cats displaced by the storm were sent to a rescue organization last week, Griffith said.
More than half of the roughly 60 dogs the shelter took in after the storm have been reclaimed by their owners and efforts are being made to reunite the rest.
“We’re not euthanizing, we’re finding a place for these animals to go to,” she said.
What would have helped that effort, Griffith said, was if more of the dogs had been tagged with microchips identifying them.
“So when the dogs get lost or they’re picked up running loose, we will be able to reunite them,” she said.
The Calhoun County Humane Society is planning to organize a microchip drive in the future to encourage owners to have their pets tagged.
But for now, Griffith and the other volunteers are continuing hurricane relief efforts, motivated by a dose of North Country support.
“Thank you is never gonna be enough to express our gratitude, our love for what they gave us,” she said.
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HOW TO HELP
Although the Joshua Fund Dog Rescue has ended the Texas supply drive, the nonprofit is still looking for volunteers to help with operations.
Some volunteer tasks include applying to take in foster dogs, filling envelopes for mailing campaigns and thank-you notes and helping transport animals.
"Anybody that is willing to volunteer their time, we're willing to listen and see if we have a place for them," co-founder Dan Bain said.
Donations can also be made to the Joshua Fund online at joshuafundrescue.org or by mail at P.O. Box 408, Jay, NY 12941.
Adoption applications and applications to register as a foster home are also available on the website.
For more information, email info@joshuafundrescue.org or follow the Joshua Fund Facebook page at http://ift.tt/2hbZ2iM.
