PICKENS COUNTY, S.C. – “The dogs and cats of Pickens County need your help.”
That was the lede of a story I wrote around this time of the year in 2014, when, for the first time since opening in 1972, the Pickens County Humane Society was in danger of having to close its animal shelter.
Readers responded to that story, contributing enough money to keep the shelter open another year and donating hundreds of pounds of dog and cat food and other supplies.
Each year since then, the nonprofit organization has found the wolf at its door as the holiday season approached, and each time, readers of The Greenville News came through with enough to ensure another year of operation, even helping build new kennels for the dogs.
But this year, the situation appears bleaker than ever before.
You may have heard that the shelter plans to close on Dec. 31. That’s what I heard, too.
So I was surprised last week when I saw something on Facebook indicating that they haven’t given up hope.
They’re holding out for just one more Christmas miracle to get them into 2018, and if they get there, they have a plan to put the organization on a sustainable financial footing.
Their Go Fund Me page is still in operation at https://www.gofundme.com/pickenscountyhumanesociety.
In case you don’t know how we got to this point, here’s a little bit of history.
Pickens County government used to provide the Humane Society with $120,000 a year, which came close to covering the cost of operating the facility on Five Forks Road near Liberty.
Then, a few years ago, the county cut back the funding level to $70,000. That’s when the trouble started.
This year, County Council decided to do away with the funding altogether, in favor of expanding the county animal control department to operate a pet adoption center.
With the funding cutoff coming in the middle of the calendar year, July 1, the Humane Society found itself in a bad spot. It continued on, drawing from its endowment to help make up the shortfall while taking on a grant writer to seek outside funding.
Being in the middle of a year, though, organizations offering grants weren’t willing to take a chance, so the shelter stopped taking in new animals a few weeks ago and made tentative plans to cease operations at the end of the year.
“We are realists, so realistically…our last day will be December 31,” said Humane Society Director Samantha Gamble. “But that still doesn’t mean that we can’t do one last pull, one last try.”
“So we’re shooting for a Christmas miracle.”
It will have to be a big one – significantly bigger than the previous ones.
At this point, they have raised about $10,000 toward the $70,000 needed to offset the loss of county funding. If they don't reach the goal, money left in the account will be turned over to organizations that take responsibility for whatever animals are remaining on Dec. 31, Gamble said.
Although Humane Society officials argued incessantly against the county’s plan to cut off their funding and turn it over to the county animal control department, Gamble said she isn’t opposing the county operating a pet adoption facility.
Upstate SPCA of Pickens County, the county’s new animal adoption center, opened earlier this month at 186 Prison Camp Road, Pickens.
But Gamble doesn’t believe the county will be able to handle the load with the Humane Society’s shelter shut down.
“Now that the county has opened their own facility, people are definitely supporting that, and we support that as well,” she said. “But at the same time, I feel like with us closing our doors they’re going to be facing a lot of overcrowdedness.”
“Without us, it’s not going to be efficient for Pickens County,” added Humane Society shelter manager Megan Brown.
Gamble says the Humane Society has a track record of providing a high level of care, sanitary conditions and animal training that the county hasn’t demonstrated it can match.
The Humane Society has been operating as a no-kill shelter. Up until now, the county’s experience has been in collecting strays and nuisance animals and euthanizing those that aren’t claimed by their owners.
If they get that big Christmas miracle, the Humane Society hopes to enlist 290 people who are willing to contribute $20 a month – or a larger number contributing less – to sustain operations. It also will be able to file grant applications early enough in the year to get consideration, unlike this year.
The Humane Society’s lease on its property with the city of Liberty runs for another six years, according to Gamble.
It’s clear that the residents of Pickens County care about the Humane Society, as they have demonstrated for the past few holiday seasons. The problem has been in garnering continuing support.
“That’s been an ongoing issue, that we just don’t have that community support that really stays behind us,” Gamble said. “It’s always when we’re at the verge of closing our doors do we then in turn get this rallying of support.”
So, if you want to leave it to the government to take responsibility for the homeless animals, that's what you're going to get, unless people who care step up.
“We would still like to be here. we would still like to take care of our animals,” Gamble said. “We have a lot of success stories and we’ve done a lot of good in this county and we want to continue to do such.
“And we feel like we can be a compliment to the Pickens County Upstate SCPA, not necessarily competition to it.”
What do you think? Is another Christmas miracle possible?
It’s up to you.
