Well, by the time you read this, you have probably already broken or bent your 2017 New Year’s resolutions. We all have such great intentions — lose weight, move more, be nicer to those around us. Whatever your particular issue, we all know that in the coming year we are going to do something better, or stop doing something that may be harmful, like the peanut-butter-and-jelly-stuffed French toast for breakfast, or maybe just take more time with friends and family.
The Houlton Humane Society didn’t have any such resolutions in 2016, but if we did, we would be proud to look back to see that we have followed through. If we had put it on paper, we would have listed the following: update all policies and procedures that were woefully outdated; reward employees for good performance; reach out to the public with a new website; rebuild the board of directors with fresh faces and new energy; invigorate the fund-raising programs and come up with new and exciting ideas for raising funds to support the increasing expenses; review protocol; and find ways to save money on supplies, food and litter.
Those items have all been addressed this past year. Each and every policy was reviewed in weeks of meetings, including a daylong workshop. Personnel policy and procedure were updated, adoption and admission forms improved, bylaws reviewed and adjusted to allow more board members, and each and every form scrubbed and updated for the times. This is, as you know, an organization with 70 years of history and some of the terms and language of old forms were just antiquated.
We had a number of fun and successful fund-raisers, an online auction, a shoe drive, a spaghetti supper, a rabies clinic, a bottle drive, a number of adopt-a-thons, an open house, yard sale and more.
We have welcomed a number of new board members who have brought with them new ideas and an exciting new vision for the future of Houlton Humane.
We have recognized superior staff and brought on new staff as needed. And we have reviewed some long-held ideas, such as cats have to have cat litter, and discovered that many shelters use wood pellets — they cost less and are very clean and very efficient, as well as an environmentally friendly renewable resource. So we have switched over to pellets very successfully.
The website was constructed and we are still working to upload current photos of animals available for adoption. We are grateful to all those who take the photos and do that work. With so many changes, some days a half dozen or so animals coming in, and five or six adoptions, this is a very time-consuming challenge, but we want you to be able to go to houltonhumanesociety.org and see the sweet babies waiting for new homes.
It has been an incredible year — busy, exciting, cheers going up each day as a homeless pet finds a new home. We have made a policy change so that all animals are spayed and neutered prior to adoption, so the adoption fee has been adjusted to reflect this cost. We have sponsors who will help with some of the cost and received a grant to pay for some surgeries, which will help us place more animals.
So now it’s 2017, and the resolution for the new year is just this — more of the same. Finding forever homes for these animals is the goal; funding the operations is the necessity. You will see more bottle drives, coin drives, suppers, walks and adopt-a-thons. You will hear more success stories. You will be asked to become a partner in this venture.
Nothing feels better than to walk hand in hand with a group of individuals so dedicated to a cause, united in spirit, goal-oriented, and just loving the animals. If you have a desire to become a board member, there are still openings available. Watch for our meeting announcements, stop in, visit, volunteer. One morning a week to help clean cages and you’ll be addicted. It’s a fun and heart warming way to spend a morning.
Thank you all who have walked with us this past year, and let’s move into 2017 ready to rock and roll!
