Roanoke, VA (April 15, 2021) – The Regional Center for Animal Care and Protection announced today a $20,000 grant investment from the newly named, Petco Love, to support their lifesaving work for animals in the Roanoke Valley, including Botetourt County, City of Roanoke, Roanoke County, and the Town of Vinton.
Petco Love is a nonprofit leading change for pets nationally by harnessing the power of love to make communities and pet families closer, stronger, and healthier. Since their founding in 1999 as the Petco Foundation, they’ve empowered organizations with nearly $300 million invested to date in adoption and other lifesaving efforts. And, they’ve helped find loving homes for more than 6.5 million pets in partnership with Petco and more than 4,000 organizations, like ours, nationwide.
“Today Petco Love announces an investment in Regional Center for Animal Care and Protection and hundreds of other organizations as part of our commitment to create a future in which no pet is unnecessary euthanized,” said Susanne Kogut, President of Petco Love. “Our local investments are only one component. This month, we will also launch the first of our national tools to empower all animal lovers to drive lifesaving change right alongside us.”
“We are very excited to receive this lifesaving grant to support our foster care program and rescue placement efforts. In 2020, our rescue coordinator found placement for 1,144 animals and our foster coordinator processed over 640 animals through the foster program to ensure a happy ending for these animals. This grant will allow us to add a part-time support staff person to share the workload and ensure that more animals find forever homes when they come into the shelter. We are thankful to Petco Love for recognizing our hard work and determination to find a home for our homeless animals and being a partner to ensure our success continues,” said Mike Warner, Executive Director.
The Regional Center for Animal Care and Protection is a regional municipal organization that serves the localities of Botetourt County, City of Roanoke, Roanoke County, and the Town of Vinton to provide sheltering services for the Roanoke Valley’s stray and homeless animals. RCACP is an open intake shelter with a mission to provide a safe haven for lost animals to be reunited with their owners as well as to provide appropriate care for unclaimed and owner relinquished animals so that new forever homes can be identified as quickly as possible. Since 2013, RCACP has sheltered between 4,000 and 6,000 each year and we are consistently improving and building programs to ensure that our animals find their forever homes. Over the last four years, we have increased our adoption events through the use of an adoption trailer to carry animals safely, increased our rescue partnerships to include freedom flights with Pilots for Paws and rescue transport through the ASPCA, opened a free roam cat room so friendly cats can mingle freely, hired a full-time veterinarian to provide in-shelter care, revamped the front office area for a better customer experience, started an Inmate Dog Training Program which trained over 100 dogs in basic obedience, and increased our live release rate from 75% to 86% in that same timeframe.
For more information about The Regional Center for Animal Care and Protection, visit RCACP, VA | Official Website, and click here to learn more about Petco Love.
# # #
For more information, contact:
Mike Warner, RCACP, 540-283-2670, mwarner@rcacp.org
Jennifer Perez, Petco Love, foundationmedia@petcofoundation.org
About RCACP
The Regional Center for Animal Care and Protection serves the City of Roanoke, the Counties of Botetourt and Roanoke, and the Town of Vinton, and is an “open intake facility.” The Regional Center primarily handles stray animals picked up by the Animal Control Officers employed by the municipalities, but also accepts strays that are found, and animals owned by citizens of the municipalities served. Each year the Regional Center receives between 4,000 and 6,000 animals. The RCACP primary goal is to return animals to their owners. Unclaimed animals may be made available for adoption or transferred to other animal welfare organizations.
About Petco Love (Formerly Petco Foundation)
Petco Love is a nonprofit changing lives by making communities and pet families closer, stronger, and healthier. Since our founding in 1999 as the Petco Foundation, we’ve empowered animal welfare organizations by investing nearly $300 million in adoption and other lifesaving efforts. We’ve helped find loving homes for more than 6.5 million pets in partnership with Petco and organizations nationwide. Today, our love for pets drives us to lead with innovation, creating tools animal lovers need to reunite lost pets, and lead with passion, inspiring and mobilizing communities and our more than 4,000 animal welfare partners to drive lifesaving change alongside us. Is love calling you? Join us. Visit petcolove.org to be part of the lifesaving work we’re leading every day.