A theft uncovers a sign of community
What happened to Bob and Gail Matthews last Wednesday is a sign that every penny counts for a nonprofit that relies on charitable donations from the community. What happened since is just a reminder of how much the community is willing to pitch in to make a difference.
For the past five years, the People Assisting Lodi Shelter has been working on the new PALS Haven shelter located on Sargent Road near Sycamore Lane Kennels. The new building is needed to provide additional housing and medical services for stray animals in need of homes.
The Matthews, both PALS volunteers, were temporarily keeping one of the signs for the new shelter at their home on Woodlake Circle when it was stolen from in front of their garage in the middle of the night. When Bob went out to move his car the next morning, the sign was nowhere in sight.
“This theft is mean-spirited and shameful. We hope that perhaps the perpetrator of this theft will read this and return the sign in the dead of night like they stole it,” Gail said.
The sign cost PALS about $500 and was going to be used at the entrance of Sycamore Kennels to let people know PALS Haven was located there. The Matthews were keeping the sign at their home until it was ready to be mounted. Bob contacted the police within 30 minutes of discovering that the sign was missing.
“They took a report, and that was it. They can’t really do much,” he said.
In the past, there have been mail box and car thefts here and there in the neighborhood, but Bob never expected the sign to be stolen.
“I have several neighbors that can’t believe it even happened,” he said.
Fortunately, PALS has already secured a few donations to replace the sign. However, Bob said he’ll wait a few months before ordering a new sign, and this time around he won’t be keeping it in front of his garage.
Even though the community has pitched in to replace the sign, the Matthews are still disappointed that anyone would take it in the first place.
“PALS Haven is a nonprofit that benefits the homeless cats and dogs of Lodi and provides all the vaccines, microchips, additional housing, and dog walkers for the Lodi Animal Shelter,” Gail said.
“All our funding comes from the public, so this theft not only costs PALS money to replace it, it’s stealing from every PALS donor.”
Bob took an old piece of plywood and painted the message “give us back our sign” on it and placed it where the sign was stolen.
Nancy Alumbaugh, president of PALS, was both surprised and disappointed to find out the sign had been stolen.
“I was truly surprised because I thought the sign was certainly beneficial to us,” she said. “We’ve used it for advertising our future haven project. I thought to myself, ‘how sad, because it’s truly of little value to someone else.’ We’re very frugal about how we use our funding and how someone can steal a sign that we had is just something I don’t quite understand.”
However, Alumbaugh is grateful for the donations PALS has received so far to replace the sign.
“We are always sad when people do things that seem pointless, and so the donors have been wonderful to us,” she said.
Because of the donors, Alumbaugh said PALS has been able to keep the shelter project going, and is expecting to move in animals sometime next year. While PALS was able to get a lot of work done this year, they still have more work that needs to be done, she said.
“We have more cement to pour and kennels to install, and there are several projects remaining, but we are debt free and that’s something that we’ve worked really hard to do. We definitely still have things that need to be funded,” she said.
So far, $1.5 million generated by donations from the community has been spent on the project. PALS is still fundraising
for the project and those interested in donating can call 209224-0354 or visit http://palslodi.org.
Lodi Animal Services Officer Jordan Kranich is excited about the PALS Haven and said that the additional shelter will help to reduce overcrowding at the Lodi Animal Shelter, which is currently overcrowded.
“They will assist us by being able to move animals around and uncrowd the animals. They will have a medical facility out there and provide the spaying and neutering of animals, so it’s going to help with a lot of adoptions,” Kranich said.