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 Peanut Pet Shelter in Playa del Carmen- Let's Sponsor a Kennel! View Slideshow
By Heather in Paradise
When I moved here 4 years ago, I made a commitment to involving myself in the community as a way of giving thanks in some small way to Mexico for allowing me to live here. I have been fortunate enough to take part in fundraising events for the Bomberos, Angel Notion, and hurricane relief efforts in Majahual. Most recently, the charity that has been closest to my heart is the Peanut Pet Shelter, which was founded and is operated by my friends, Andy and Jen. The shelter functions solely on their own savings, fundraising events, and through donations from generous animal lovers.
I can’t say enough about the impact Andy and Jen are making in Playa del Carmen. Their no-kill shelter is the first of its kind here. In the one year of the shelter’s existence, Andy and Jen have managed to rescue, heal, and rehome hundreds of stray dogs and cats who would have otherwise lived out their sad, bleak, and short lives with no one to love or care for them. One thing that I will never get used to, living here, is the stray animal situation.
Every dog gets shots and health checkups before being rehomed. If the animal is old enough, they are also spayed or neutered, and one of the conditions of adoption of younger animals is that the owner agrees to spay or neuter (which, I believe, the shelter will also pay for). Andy and Jen’s long-term goals include community outreach in an attempt to help change the way stray animals are viewed and treated, and to increase the likelihood of people spaying and neutering their pets.
Each Saturday, Andy and Jen hold a “dog wash” at their home (which is where these dogs live, too, until the funds are raised to build a proper shelter. Can you imagine having 50 dogs at your house?!). My friend Wayne in Isla Mujeres has twice attended the dog wash and most recently wrote it up here.
Andy and Jen have been feverishly working to raise enough money to build a proper shelter in the lot next door to their home. They came up with the great idea to offer the kennels for sponsorship to businesses, groups, or individuals. Each kennel costs 500 usd to build, and the sponsor will get a plaque affixed to the kennel with his logo or name on it. They’ve done fairly well, but still have 6 kennels left without sponsors.
Unfortunately I am not someone with a lot of cash, so my primary method of helping the Peanut Pet Shelter has been to offer my hands or time to help with fundraising and to care for the dogs. Here and there I have bought raffle tickets or contributed a bag of food, but I have felt very unhappy that I am unable to make any sizable monetary donation.
Today it occurred to me that perhaps we could all get in on this and sponsor a kennel or two together. If we all chip in, I’m sure we could quickly come up with enough cash to put our group’s name on a kennel. All we’d have to do is come up with a great group name and logo (anyone know how to design a logo? Because I sure don’t.), raise the cash, and voila! We’re official sponsors of the Peanut Pet Shelter. I can spare 500 pesos to get the ball rolling (50 bucks).
So who’s with me? Let me know in the comments if you’d like to contribute and what you think our name should be. After all the suggestions for names have come in, I’ll do a poll so we can choose the winning sponsor name.
Below is the button to click to make a donation via PayPal, to my email address. Please be sure to put “Peanut Pet Shelter” in the comments section.
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