Humane society addition lands funding
Posted By Peter Downs, Standard Staff
Updated 8 months ago
The Lincoln County Humane Society is getting more room to stretch its paws.
The provincial and federal governments are each putting up about $450,000 in matching funds to help the St. Catharines animal shelter expand its Fourth Avenue building.
The humane society will also chip in the same amount, bringing the total cost of the 5,000-square-foot building project to about $1.3 million.
Expected to be built early in the new year, the addition will house an emergency veterinary clinic, allowing the humane society to provide more medical services to animals on site.
"This is great," humane society executive director Kevin Strooband said Thursday. "When I heard about it ... I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. We've wanted this for a long time."
The addition and new services should enable the agency to cut some of its costs in the long run, Strooband said.
With a staff veterinarian working full time in the emergency shelter, the humane society will no longer have to contract out many of its medical procedures, including spaying and neutering.
Transporting animals to outside vets — often as many as two or three times a day — also eats up a lot of staff time, Strooband said.
By reducing costs for procedures, the shelter should be able to reduce the number of animals that have to be euthanized and increase adoption rates, he said.
"Animals that may have been considered too sick or too injured before now we'll be able to do that work," he said.
The two-storey addition will be attached to the building's north-west side. Administrative office space in the existing building will be relocated to the addition to make way for "socialization" space for animals and more room for clients to bond with prospective pets.
"I think this is an amazing project. It's long overdue," Strooband said.
St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley and MP Rick Dykstra joined Strooband at the shelter to make the funding announcement.
Dykstra said he was thrilled to see the humane society get funding approval to expand.
"You can make announcements about funding for a lot of roads and bridges and infrastructure, but this one's really special," said Dykstra, whose constituency office is usually crawling with cats up for adoption through neighbouring Court Animal Hospital.
Bradley pointed out the humane society addition was among only 70 projects in its category to receive approval for matching infrastructure dollars.
"That means, of course, that the people at the Lincoln County Humane Society put forward an excellent application," he said. "They demonstrated a genuine need, they showed they could move ahead quite quickly and that it would benefit the community."
Strooband said the agency has its share of construction costs, but it will be launching a public fundraising campaign to equip the addition.
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