News

LIGHTNING EDITORIAL: Agencies that help animals deserve help

By Bill Moss, Published: January 13, 2017

Two stories at the tail end of 2016 — excuse the phrase — told a lot about how devoted agencies are working so hard and with so much success on behalf of animal welfare.

Dogs and cats are not the highest priority in our society in the largest sense. We have health, education and the success of the next generation to worry about, to cite several areas. But those are human needs that get a lot of public attention and public dollars, even if our strategies are dubious and success elusive.
Stray dogs and cats and unwanted litters of puppies and kittens is a problem that most communities struggle to address, especially rural ones. Few communities have had a greater record of success in this arena than we do, thanks to two nonprofit agencies that were in the news in the last quarter of last year.
Although the Community Partnership for Pets and the Blue Ridge Humane Society were headed in different directions, there’s reason to be confident.
Mary Cervini announced in November that the spay and neuter organization she founded 12 years ago with her husband, Mike, was close to running out of money and in jeopardy of going out of business. That would be a shame, given the CPP’s amazing success. Operated out of the couple’s Flat Rock home with the help of volunteers, the partnership has given away or sold deeply discounted vouchers to cover spay and neuter operations. The effort has accounted for 25,894 surgeries.
“That has stopped thousands and thousands of animals from being born,” Cervini says.
Grants have been drying up, however, and the partnership would like to have a steady stream of donations to continue its work. A Community Foundation grant of $12,600 helped keep it going, as did a $59 donation from Brownie Troop 30583.
The Blue Ridge Humane Society, which deals with the outcome when dogs and cats aren’t fixed, had good news as 2016 came to a close. It purchased a 2.7-acre piece of property on South Grove Street and will convert buildings into kennels for adoptable puppies and kittens. The property, next to the county Activities and Athletics Center, gives the Humane Society a convenient and highly visible location not only for volunteers but for adoption events. Lutrelle O’Cain, whose leadership over the past five years has driven the Humane Society’s record of success, predicts that the new quarters will greatly increase adoptions.
“Four years ago, our adoption numbers were around 400 and every year they’ve grown by at least 100,” O’Cain told Hendersonville Lightning reporter Caroline Ellis in mid-December. “We’re at 1,115 animals today for the year and we’ve got two weeks left to go.”
Henderson County humans and their four-legged friends are lucky to have the Community Partnership for Pets and the Blue Ridge Humane Society. Without the partnership, we’d have thousands more unwanted dogs and cats and without the humane society, fewer of the puppies and kittens that are born and abandoned would find permanent loving homes.

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To help visit the partnership or the Blue Ridge Humane Society..