I can’t believe we’re already making Thanksgiving plans, but I’m still in awe of all the incredible things we accomplished in October at KCPP. So far in 2022, we’ve provided care for 13,484 dogs, cats, and other pets – including 1,482 new dogs and cats that arrived in October. The number of animals arriving has increased 45% since 2019. And just when we thought we couldn’t get any busier, we set several new records in October.
- Our veterinary team performed a record breaking 1,289 spay/neuter and specialty surgeries in October. This is the largest number of surgeries ever performed in our shelter’s vet clinic in one month! Our veterinary team performed some amazing lifesaving surgeries last month too, including a thoracocentesis (an emergency procedure to remove air trapped between the lungs and the chest cavity due to a trauma). We also saw our talented veterinary team draw blood from an ill Bearded Dragon that arrived – and they created a special padded “boot” for a rooster with a painful condition called Bumblefoot!
- Our community-wide KC Mega Match pet adoption event in October fueled a record 1,041 pets finding new homes last month! The number of pets being adopted from KC Pet Project is up 52% over the last 4 years.
- At the end of the month, we had 189 dogs/puppies and 321 cats/kittens in foster homes – including 81 tiny bottle baby kittens that arrived in October (the largest number of kittens under 4-weeks-old we’ve seen since May)!
- We provided spay/neuter services to 74 community cats in October, bringing our total to 754 owned or community pets having received low-cost spay/neuter services this year (up 46% in 2022).
- We achieved an incredible 94.6% save rate in October (95.2% dogs, 94.1% cats) and our Year-to-Date save rate for 2022 is an impressive 96.1%, despite taking in the highest number of animals in our city’s history.
- We had lots of great media coverage last month, including KC Pet Project being chosen for the new Kansas City Monopoly game. We had 88 media stories during the month of October and the estimated media reach for animal services and sheltering stories was 94,121,347 million people.
- In October, 409 volunteers gave 3,177 hours of service (the equivalent of 18 full time employees), including 102 area high school students that helped us clean kennels and make canine enrichment treats.
- Since January, KCPP’s Pet Care Assistance Program has provided $46,892.08 in financial assistance to 204 families with 241 pets. Just last month, we waived $8,950.00 in Reclaim Fees for 96 families, and we shared pet food, cat litter, collars/leashes, kennels, and pet ID tags (valued at more than $20,000) with families in our community.
On Wednesday of this week, we were honored to have won another Philly Award through Nonprofit Connect. The Philly Awards celebrate excellence in marketing, video production, social media, fundraising events, brand management, newsletters, websites, etc. More than 60 professionals from marketing/advertising agencies across the metro judged the entries from nonprofits of all sizes. I’m proud to share that – once again – KC Pet Project took home the GOLD!!! We won GOLD in the category of Social Media Campaign for our story of Simon (the matted Shih Tzu).
Have a great day!
Teresa Johnson
President/CEO of KC Pet Project