Once again, NBC Universal and Telemundo stations across the nation and in Puerto Rico are teaming up with animal shelters to host Clear the Shelters, which aims to find homes for the approximate 6.5 million dogs, cats and other animals that enter shelters each year. Through the campaign, more than 860,000 animals have found furever homes since its inception in 2015.
In our region, the participating shelters include:
- Pennsylvania SPCA, Lancaster Center (Lancaster City, pspca.org)
- Lancaster Center for Animal Life-Saving (Lancaster, humanepa.org)
- Noble Hill Rescue (horses, located in Kirkwood, noblehillrescue.org)
- Greenmore Farm Animal Rescue (West Grove, greenmorerescue.org)
- Providence Animal Center (Media, providenceac.org)
- Brandywine Valley SPCA (West Chester, bvspca.org)
- Animal Rescue League of Berks County (Birdsboro, berksarl.org)
- Freedom Center Animal Life-Saving (Reading, humanepa.org)
- Friends of All Animals (Lebanon, friendsofallanimals.org)
- PA Caring for K-9s (Harrisburg, pack9rescue.org)
- York County SPCA (York, ycspca.org)
The campaign has been operating all month and will be held through August 31, with August 26 being earmarked as the big day. As the name indicates, the goal is to aid local shelters and find homes for animals. Such an effort has become a challenge for shelters since they are once again operating at (or beyond) capacity. The reasons are varied and include the fact that now that Covid restrictions have come to an end, parents and children have returned to offices and classrooms and find they no longer have time to devote to the pets they adopted during the pandemic, nor do they feel they have time to welcome a new pet into their homes. What had been an unprecedented surge to adopt pets has now gone in the opposite direction.
Stray dogs and cats are also flooding shelters; add to that the fact that dogs and cats that have not been natured or spayed is only impacting the population of unwanted animals.
Yet another factor is due to storms and fires, which cause shelters to be damaged or completely destroyed. Shelters on the island of Maui are facing that reality and have put out an SOS for other shelters to help save their charges.
In an effort to find homes for pets, participating shelters offer significant reductions in adoption fees and/or provide goods and services that help adopters take on pets. Visit individual websites to learn about their promotions.
If you can’t adopt a shelter pet, there are other ways to support the cause.
- Consider becoming a foster pet parent. This will help shelters make space for other homeless pets.
- Through a prompt on the Clear the Shelters website, you can make a monetary contribution to the shelter of your choice
- You can purchase an adorable bow tie for your pet through Sir Darrius Brown (this year’s Clear the Shelters ambassador) and his Beaux & Paws boutique. Again, there is a prompt on the website.
For more information, visit cleartheshelters.com.
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