SW Indiana animal welfare organizations embark on new projects
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Three not-for-profit organizations are working on projects in the new year to better the lives of animals in southwestern Indiana.
Warrick Humane Society began a $1.25 million capital campaign in November to raise money for a new shelter. Executive director Lindsey Hagedorn told Inside INdiana Business the organization has outgrown its existing facility.
“It’s not necessarily not having enough kennels, which our new facility would grow our capacity by a little bit, but more of being able to function how we should and more appropriately so that each activity can have its own space,” she said.
Newlife Rescue & Adoption in Posey County is also running a capital campaign to build a new shelter that’s expected to cost more than $1 million. Volunteer Lucy Steinhart said the current building, an old furniture store, wasn’t designed for housing animals.
“So this would be the first truly designed animal shelter for our county,” she said.
Dubois County Humane Society is opening a new spay and neuter clinic after completing a shelter remodel and expansion in 2021. The price tag for both projects is around $280,000 to $300,000. Shelter manager Kelly Eckerle said the community needs more spaying and neutering services.
“COVID brought a lot of changes nationally for shelters. We started to struggle to get enough affordable appointments for spay and neuter for our animals,” she said. “That’s something that everyone has really been struggling with. I mean, we’re talking months.”
Warrick Humane Society capital campaign
When Hagedorn came to Warrick Humane Society in 2012, there were about 25 adoptions a month. Now the shelter sees around 25 adoptions a week. That growth, combined with limited space, forces the organization to use the existing shelter’s common areas for multiple purposes.
“There are no private spaces to talk, [for] people to do paperwork, to focus, or [for] somebody [who is] emotional when they’re surrendering a pet or anything like that. There is no space that we can do that,” Hagedorn said.
The current building is nearly 30 years old. Hagedorn said the organization has spent thousands of dollars on maintenance bills to deal with electrical and plumbing issues.
“It doesn’t make sense to continue pouring our money into a facility that isn’t functioning for us,” she said.
In 2021, a volunteer left the humane society a piece of land near the shelter and a monetary gift, which gave the organization a foundation to start fundraising for the new facility’s development.
“The new shelter has adoption rooms. It has meet and greet rooms. It has a large conference area for events and fundraisers and educational programs. There’s storage. We actually have a whole separate intake area. It’s not through our front door anymore. So those can be done privately where the animals can be vaccinated or if it’s an owner surrender,” said Hagedorn.
Warrick Humane Society is accepting donations for the new shelter online.
“Any kind of support that we can get from individuals or anybody wanting to leave a legacy gift because giving that money, you are helping build a new shelter, and that is a huge thing for Warrick County,” Hagedorn said. “Continuing on in our current facility is just not an option.”
Warrick Humane Society hopes to get shovels in the dirt for its new facility in May. The organization may add a resale shop to the existing shelter, but at least one current feature will stay in place.
“We have our Home Away Pet Spa that’s still going to remain on the property,” said Hagedorn. “It’s a full-service boarding and grooming facility where all the profits go to help the shelter pets.”
Newlife Rescue & Adoption shelter goals
Newlife Rescue & Adoption was formed in 2022 when Posey Humane Society and PC Pound Puppies merged resources. The organization operates out of the humane society’s building with additional kennels on private property. Steinhart said the facility is small and hard to clean.
“Our original idea was that we were going to repair and build on to that building, but the architect and engineers were like, it’s going to cost you more to do that than to start fresh,” she said.
Like Warrick Humane Society, Newlife Rescue & Adoption was the benefactor of a monetary gift that prompted the launch of the capital campaign.
“A donor who passed away, we didn’t even know that we were in the will, had left PC Pound Puppies a significant amount of money. We realized, hey, that’s enough to at least get a good jump start on a shelter and get those dogs off of that property and give us better access and have a true animal shelter for the county,” Steinhart said.
The new shelter will be built on the same property as the existing facility. Planned features include a meet and greet room, separate intake and sick isolation areas and a grooming and exam area. However, Steinhart said there may be some changes with bids coming in higher than the $1 million budget.
“We’re working with those contractors, the architect and engineering firm and then some of our volunteers to try and look at what are the things we’ve already cut down from our wants to our absolute needs,” she said.
Newlife Rescue & Adoption is accepting donations through PayPal. A $50,000 grant will also be available from the CreatINg Places program through the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority if the community raises $50,000 on Patronicity by Jan. 19.
The rescue and adoption organization expects to break ground on the new shelter sometime in 2024. Steinhart said ideas for repurposing the old shelter include storage, a resale shop and a medical suite.
“We’d love to have a spay and neuter clinic. There’s only one vet in our county, and it’s been bought by a corporation, so their prices have increased,” she said.
Dubois County Humane Society clinic plans
At the beginning of the Dubois County Humane Society’s capital campaign, the plan was to add a spay and neuter clinic to the shelter once the remodel and expansion were complete. However, the organization later realized attaching a medical suite would take up too much space.
“Our shelter, we’re on a pretty small piece of property, and there’s really only one spot that we could add on in any capacity. In doing so would eat up a lot of our parking,” said Eckerle.
The organization started looking for an alternative location and found a house that had already been transformed into a medical clinic.
“It’s been sitting for sale for a couple of years. So we shifted our plans into having a different facility, a standalone facility for just spay and neuter,” Eckerle said.
In December, Dubois County Humane Society reached its fundraising goal for the spay and neuter clinic and started ordering equipment. However, the organization always accepts donations online.
“Everything that we have is through donors, fundraisers and grants that we apply for. So this is happening because we have an amazing community that supports us and helps us achieve our goals,” said Eckerle.
The opening day for the spay and neuter clinic is tentatively set for Feb. 1. The humane society hopes to add additional services, such as vaccine clinics, in the future.