Animal lovers answer the call
RISPCA collects large amount of donation for hurricane relief
EAST PROVIDENCE – Dr. E.J. Finocchio, president of the Rhode Island Society for the Prevention of Cruelty, says he is overwhelmed by the donations that have been pouring in since the organization announced a week ago that it would match donations up to $2,500 and send those donations directly to colleagues at the Houston SPCA.
“The response has been tremendous,” said Finocchio. “I thought we would raise, at best, $4,000, maybe $5,000. Instead, we raised more than $21,000.”
As of Monday, the RISPCA had received a whopping $21,455 in donations and they were still coming in.
“I have never received so much mail as we did last week,” said Finocchio, adding individual donations ranged from $1 to $2,000.
The money collected so far was scheduled to be sent to Houston Tuesday and anything that comes in during this week (the donation drive ends Friday), will be sent next week.
“It never ceases to amaze me the exceptional generosity of the people of Rhode Island and Massachusetts,” he said. “I’ve seen it time and time again. When there’s a call for help, the people of Rhode Island and Massachusetts answer that call. When there is a need anywhere in the world, there is no one like Americans to lend a helping hand. ”
Finocchio said when he contacted Houston SPCA officials last week to inform them of the RISPCA donation drive, he received a message back that said, in part, “The employees, staff and volunteers at Houston SPCA are truly overwhelmed by the benevolence of the people of Rhode Island.”
Finocchio said an estimated 600,000 animals were killed or stranded during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and that animal welfare agencies around the country wanted to make sure that didn’t happen in Houston.
“The human-animal bond is tremendous,” he says. “When we went down to Louisiana after Katrina we found out that 44 percent of the people in that catastrophe refused to evacuate their homes because they couldn’t take their animals with them.”
In the early stages of the response to Katrina, some first responders had instructions not to take animals to safety, despite the pleadings of their caregivers. Human shelters, which filled up because of mandatory evacuation orders, excluded animals. That, Finocchio says, caused some people to refuse to leave their homes, because they wouldn’t abandon their best friends during a life-threatening crisis.
“That led to Congress passing the Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act of 2006, which requires that state and local preparedness offices take into account pet owners, household pets and service animals when drawing up evacuation plans,” he said.
Finocchio has seen first hand how natural disasters impact people and their pets.
“The RISPCA went to Louisiana after Katrina with 171,000 pounds of supplies in three 52-foot tractor trailer trucks, and to see the separation of people from their pets was heartbreaking,” he said. “Thousands of animals died or were stranded and hundreds of displaced animals were never reunited with their owners.”
Finocchio says the Houston SPCA is still in need of monetary donations instead of physical supplies.