Pet Calendar and the Balloon Juice Store

Just a reminder, please get your pet pics to Beth at [email protected] – Get them in soon.

In addition, I have made the decision to move on to a new charity. Charlie’s Angels Animal Rescue has grown to the point that they no longer need our help, so I have followed Evelyn Bridges, our old CAAR contact, to MARC, the Marion Animal Resource Connection in Jasper, TN. We hope our support will allow them to grow just as CAAR did. A bit about MARC from Evelyn:

MARC’s mission is to improve the lives of animals in Marion County TN through education and spay/neuter promotion and advocacy. A very large part of our activities involves rescuing animals from our high kill pounds, from areas where they have been dumped, from people who no longer want them and from abusive environments.

Since our beginning on Oct 4, 2011 MARC has established communication w/ officials of the county and the four largest municipalities encouraging them to work together w/ MARC to decrease the number of stray unwanted dumped dogs and cats and prevent the needless killing of the animals brought to the only two very small barely adequate high kill town pounds. The county has no animal control and no shelter. One of the towns now holds the dogs 10 days instead of the required 0-3-5 days giving us an opportunity to move the dogs if we can find fosters or rescues to take them.

We are speaking w/ community/county civic organizations making them aware of MARC and its mission and enlisting their support. Beginning Jan 2013 we will be meeting w/ individual businesses to encourage their support of MARC.

The local newspapers are printing weekly animal alerts and articles MARC submits. A reporter attends our monthly volunteer meetings and is very supportive of our mission.

We are slowly making progress w/ the 3-4 local vets. Two are beginning to give discounts for our rescued animals. We want to maintain a positive and mutually beneficial relationship to promote the availability of low cost spay/neuter procedures and vaccines to those citizens who cannot afford the usual costs.

One low cost S/N clinic from Chattanooga, Wally’s Friends comes to our county one day each month to transport animals back to their clinic to perform the procedures and return the next day. They can alter approximately 30 animals each trip. MARC is currently researching the costs of establishing a low cost S/N clinic located in Marion County.

MARC partners w/ Great Dog Rescue New England to rehome dogs north to excellent forever homes. Since March 2012 to date we have sent 77 dogs/puppies. We also work w/ other breed and puppy rescues in TN and out of state to rescue as many dogs as possible. We post our dogs and cats on our Facebook Page and Group and crosspost emails. We also post on Petfinder.

Our website is completed. It has a PayPal link and a link to our Petfinder site.

MARC’s education arm is going into local schools and offering teaching aids and lesson plans to teachers. We offer and provide humane animal education for children through a adults. We are continuing to acquire many books, videos and other materials to aid this program.

We are beginning to write for grants. Until we received our 501c3 status our main fund raising events were a booth at annual local Cornbread Festival and other smaller events such as at Tractor Supply stores. Donations from individuals are on the rise.

We have three directors and approximately 30 volunteers active in various ways and amounts. We have numerous Facebook Page and Group followers/members.

MARC receives 5-10 calls for help daily from county residents and tries to meet all requests encouraging those individuals to contribute to the solution as much as possible. We have made steady and definite progress and look w/ optimism to the future of MARC.

We appreciate your support!

Thanks again for everything you do to help these animals.