July Share the Plate: Southern Alliance for People and Animal Welfare
Our July Share the Plate partner is the Southern Alliance for People and Animal Welfare. Started in 1998, SAFPAW is a non-profit organization serving Davidson County, Tennessee, by improving the quality of life for people and pets in need. SAFPAW provides pet food, supplies, and veterinary care free of charge to pet owners who are homeless or living at or below the poverty level.
SAFPAW’s Homeless Outreach Program provides food, temporary shelter, and other basic needs to the friends we serve. We also assist those looking to secure more permanent housing by helping with transportation, acquiring necessary IDs, helping them through the application process—and everything in-between—including move-in day!
And through our new transitional post-recovery house for women, we are able to bring a few of our most vulnerable neighbors indoors and help 160 homeless pets find permanent indoor homes each year through our pet foster program.
Some recent Facebook posts express the especially great need for help at this time:
“For over 3 years the calls about stray animals, abandoned animals, animals people simply cannot keep anymore have been growing and this year it is beyond comprehension. Rescues are drowning. Our SAFPAW Cat Sanctuary is on a no intake and will be throughout the summer.”
“[T]here are days I do dream of an easier stream of money than constantly asking you….So why do we keep asking? Because we…
Deliver Lunch Meals every other Saturday to over 200 neighbors all over Nashville who would not otherwise get anything to eat. In between we deliver food boxes, pet food and diapers every week.
We run a Spay/Neuter Transport every week. We pick up dogs and cats and have them fixed, vaccinated and dewormed for folks who lack the money or transportation to get this done. This service is free of charge for those who qualify. And that is who we serve. We also have a Wellness Transport twice monthly to keep these animals up to date on vaccines and general well being. In 28 years we have had 23,000 dogs and cats fixed, vaccinated and dewormed.
We run a cat sanctuary that also houses folks who used to live on the streets. I love it when animals can help people heal and people can help those same animals heal.
We have held a Jason Brown Holiday Toy Program every Christmas for the past 16 years. We provide toys, clothes, diapers and so many amazing gifts for a small community we have served for close to 2 decades. From birth to 17 and for anyone 62 or older who lives alone.
Our Meals Program had to move to every other Saturday, the expenses were higher than the funds coming in. The food we deliver has to be bought, there is no large nonprofit or corporate store that provides for the nonprofits with boots on the ground.
And our Spay/Neuter Transport program is so very critical. But it is expensive. We may be facing having to end it this summer.
We care about every animal and person we serve. But we can only serve as much as we have means with which to do so. So we are asking again. We need you if we are to go out many times a week delivering water and Gatorade to folks struggling with the heat.”
Please help SAFPAW to continue its tremendous positive impact in the lives of people and pets, by making a generous donation to Share the Plate this month.