Almost Home Humane Society seeing decrease in donations

News 18 spoke with workers from Almost Home Humane Society about the hardships the shelter is facing during this time.

Animals from abuse and abandonment more important than ever.

But like many organizations this pandemic is creating several obstacles for shelters.

News 18's marvin bills spoke with workers from the shelter about the hardships they are facing during this time.

"everything has slowed down."

Roger ganley with almost home humane society says this pandemic has put a strain on the shelter's operations.

"it's a lot.

It's taking a toll on our staff because of our volunteers were not permitted to come in.

So, um, most non- profits exists because of volunteers."

Lack of volunteers isn't the only problem.

Ganley says donations coming into the shelter have fallen 50% and continue to decline.

And with the number of animal intakes increasing by 20% in the last two months, the shelter has been forced to find other ways to provide medical treatment for their animals.

"veterinary clinics have been closed so all of our animals have to be spayed and neutered before they are adopted out.

So we do have a back up.

We're doing everything we possibly can in house.

But it's a process."

Adoptions have also decreased.

In february the shelter adopted out a total of 117 pets.

That dropped 35% in march where only 70 pets were adopted out.

"one of the things that we had to do was cut down on our adoption process."

With fundraising events getting canceled ganley wasn't sure how the shelter was going to keep the number of pets in the shelter down and increase funds for the shelter if people couldn't adopt.

So the shelter started a private adoption system.

"it's much more structural than our usual process where people get to come in and look around."

People are required to have a specific animal in mind they'd like to adopt, they fill out an application, and then a private appointment is set.

Volunteer coordinator emily lykkegaard says it was an idea they couldn't say no to.

"if we hadn't begun doing adoptions this way i really don't know what it would look like we would have probably temporary crates set up in staff member's offices to keep dogs in there."

In lafayette, marvin bills news 18.

You can find out how you can help expand the shelter's financial resources linked to this story on our website at wlfi dot com.

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