Second Chance Labor of Love

Details

Published on Wednesday, 01 May 2013 17:05

Written by Julianne Walshaw

LITTLETON- Dedication, passion, a lot of time, and an army of volunteers; thats what it takes to help keep Jackie Allison, the president of Littleton's Second Chance Animal Rescue, going strong.

Allison started the shelter for cats back in 2010. At the time she was a founding board member of Above The Notch Humane Society in Littleton, where there just wasn't enough room for cats.

 "We primarily took in dogs," said Allison, "but I was constantly getting calls asking for help with cats. A very dear friend of mine ran The Cat's Pajamas here in Littleton, she called me one day and said she wanted to retire and asked me if I wanted to take on the end products of her years of hard work, I said I would love it!"

Cat condos, litter boxes, cages and more, everything Allison would need to get her rescue off the ground all handed to her from her dear friend.

"Bless her heart because we would have never gotten off the ground without her help," she said with a smile, "that's the way we got started."

Since then Allison and her team of about 20 "super dedicated" volunteers have given up countless hours of their time, 60 hours a week or more for Allison herself, all for their love of animals.

Raberta Kimball, one of Allison's volunteers, works a part time job but still comes into the shelter nearly every day. When asked how many hours she thinks she puts in, Kimball chuckled saying, "too many!"

All joking aside, Kimball loves to giving up her time to help out, she has become a jack of all trades at the shelter doing everything and anything that needs to be done.

"We clean cages, we feed animals, we do laundry, we do dishes. I've learned how to do adoptions, I've learned how to do intakes... medicine, we volunteers do just about everything," said Kimball.

A true labor of love, as the shelter is completely nonprofit, running solely from generous donations and numerous fundraisers. According to Allison it costs anywhere between $50,000 to $60,000 to operate Second Chance for a year, so successful fundraising is key. Annually volunteers organize a huge tent sale, where community members can donate new or gently used items to be soled, with 100% of the profits going to the shelter. According to Allison the day long event produces a lot of the shelter's funding.

Second Chance also works with the Ninety-Nine Restaurant, participating in their Dining for a Cause fundraiser, which will happen this year on June 19th.

"That evening they will donate 15% of every bill to us. We started that last year and it was a huge success!" Allison said.

They also partner with companies such as New England Wire Technologies out of Lisbon, as well as the Littleton Food Co-op. In the past there have also been children who ask that their birthday gifts to go to the shelter's cats either in the form of donations or as food, litter, toys, and so on. Second Chance also puts a letter in the paper quarterly asking for donations. As Allison says, "it all comes in a lot of different ways."

Currently Second Chance has adopted out nearly 400 cats since opening. Cyrrently the shelter is at its maximum capacity of 45 cats. Volunteers work tirelessly to care for these animals, some of which have special needs like Oliver, an orange tabby who is FIV positive and requires special care. Allison is committed to making sure her beloved felines find perfect matches, performing extensive background checks on potential adopters, and laying down specific rules on how the cats are to be cared for after leading Second Chance. Allison says she has put too much of her time and love into the animals, and to see them go to a family who won't take good care of them is not an option.

Before any cat leaves Second Chance they are spayed or neutered, vaccinated for rabies and distemper, tested for feline leukemia, treated for flees and ear mites, as well as micro-chipped in case they should ever get lost. All pet adoptions cost $120, which Allison says just barley covers the money put into the cats.

Second Chance also hosts a spay and neuter clinic once a month, and a shot clinic twice a year to benefit cats that are not living in their shelter. Those clinics are also put on by volunteers.

With what is known as Kitten Season in the midst, a time when feral and stray female cats pump out an average of 2-3 litters, Second Chance is looking for more volunteers to help foster unwanted litters of kittens. Too often litters of new born cats are dumped by their owners to fend for themselves when a non-spayed house cat has kittens. These very young kittens require serious care, especially if they do not have their mothers. A situation like this is how Kimball ended up with her cat Cooper, who was brought to Second Chance after being founded and rescued, "someone threw him in a box on their way to WalMart. He was 3 weeks old, and needed lots of love... he had a broken tail in 2 places, he was blind to begin with but that must have been because he was so tiny. I just fell in love with him and I decided to adopt him because I wanted him to go to a good home."

At the end of the day it all comes down to the passion and love these volunteers have for helping animals, and Allison thinks the world of them.

"They're tremendous.  Without them we wouldn't exist, I really can't say enough good things about them."