FKSPCA: RESCUE TAILS / “RE-BUILDING MARATHON”

BY TAMMY FOX-ROYER
Executive Director Florida Keys SPCA

On September 10th, Hurricane Irma was barreling directly toward the FKSPCA Marathon Campus. All of our animals had been safely evacuated into temporary foster homes and all staff was safely on the mainland.

Then the long wait began for word of what had happened. Our facility in Key West was extremely fortunate – but our facility in Marathon was not so lucky.

Shelter Manager Jennifer Showalter and Animal Control Officer Holly Steele returned to Marathon as early as possible and discovered that the building and, surprisingly, our outside cat area (our “catio”) were largely intact but the play yards for the dogs were completely destroyed by fallen trees, flooding and debris. The team quickly began the work of making the facility functional again and FKSPCA Executive Director Tammy Fox began contacting several agencies on the mainland to ask for assistance. One of her phone calls was to a wonderful organization called Rescue Rebuild.

Rescue Rebuild is part of a parent organization, GreaterGood, an independent charitable group devoted to improving the health and well-being of people, pets, and the planet. After two months in Texas helping animal shelters rebuild after Hurricane Harvey, they promised to come straight to Marathon and assist in remodeling, rebuilding and re-constructing our fallen play yards.

As promised, they arrived having raised over $20,000 to help our Marathon Campus. They brought supplies, volunteers and much needed smiles and support. For two weeks the team at Rescue Rebuild worked in the hot Florida sun building not one, but 6 new play yards equipped with Coyote Roll Bars (for fence jumpers), shade sails and enrichment toys. They didn’t stop there. The team set up holding kennels for stray animals, built a permanent stray yard, created a new habitat for small animals and installed shelving in Marathon’s newly acquired shipping container for storage. The Marathon shelter has never looked so good!

All of us here at the Florida Keys SPCA would like to sincerely thank Denise, Bryna, Adam, Zach, Chris, Matt, Evan, Kimberly and all the volunteers at Rescue Rebuild. We couldn’t have done it without you!

If you’d like to help our re-building process, please contact me at [email protected]. If you’d like to help build our new hurricane-resistant shelter, please donate to our new shelter building fund on our website at www.fkspca.org.

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