Mission Accomplished

After being away from home for over a year, I finally came home just before Christmas to the Philippines to stay for a little while. It has felt so great to be with family and friends again, especially after finally finishing college and interning and working in the United States. I was also so happy to see my birthday fundraiser for the Angeles City Veterinary Clinic come to fruition in real life.

Some of you may recall that last October I put out a birthday fundraiser on Facebook to raise money for my city’s vet after my dad found a dying dog on our street corner.

The dog looked to be just a few months old but was lying in the street, with raggedy skin and bones and barely alive. My dad immediately named him ‘Lucky’ and took him to the city vet where the nice folks there gave Lucky free medication, cleaned his wounds, and gave my dad medicine to take home. This was all completely free.

Unfortunately, however, after a few days of trying to keep Lucky alive, he did not survive due to the severity of his case. The vets said that they thought Lucky was around four months old,had probably been kept in a cage since birth, in squalid conditions for months, and developed a skin disease and eventually thrown out on the streets by its owner. When my dad discovered him, he had probably been on the streets for many weeks, ignored by passersby and even abused by other dogs.

I was so sad when Lucky didn’t make it, because I thought he was supposed to be our new dog. But this only made my family and I want to get more involved with the clinic. I could see from the pictures that the clinic looked very basic. My dad said that the people there told him that the clinic always welcomed donations from the public to help feed and care for the dogs and cats that enter the facility.

The city vet was so cool despite their limited resources. They gave all kinds of free services for stray dogs and cats and pet owners of all kind, especially to people in poor communities of the city, all to promote responsible pet ownership. They even had numerous cats and dogs up for adoption. After losing Lucky, we adopted two new dogs from them, Rosie and Lassi!

I thought, what a perfect opportunity to finally do something for the animals of Angeles after feeling useless and sad for many years growing up seeing such horrific animal treatment.

I initially wanted to raise 300 dollars for the city vet to support their various needs, like dog and cat food, medicine, and new dog kennels, but I ended up finishing the fundraiser having raised over 700 dollars, which amounts to about 35,000 Philippine pesos. That is incredible!

I never would have imagined receiving so much support from people all over the world, from family friends, old classmates, people I haven’t spoken to in many years, and even some strangers. I always wanted to do something for the abused and abandoned animals of Angeles City but never had the means to do so. To receive such positive support made me realize that many people really care about the animals in this city but don’t necessarily know how to help. I was going to build that bridge and show them that even the smallest bit of help was going to go a long way for the neglected animals of Angeles.

This is my update on how the donations were spent:

Before returning to the Philippines in mid-December my parents had already hit the ground running. They used the initial donations I received to buy 25 kilograms of dog food, medicine for cats and dogs and donated it directly to the city vet. They were then able to coordinate a meeting with the mayor’s daughter, Kercee Lazatin, who is also an animal lover and who works for her father.

While I was still in Columbus, I was also coordinating with my parents to get two new dog kennels made using the donations from the fundraiser. The new kennels would hold at least four dogs and would afford the clinic more space to take in new stray dogs.

A few days after returning to the Philippines I was excited to finally visit the clinic and see where the donations all went. This was only the beginning of our work!

When I arrived at the clinic they had thrown us a big boodle lunch, as a thank you for our help. Boodle-boodle is a traditional Filipino way of eating lunch where people eat with their hands over food that is placed on huge banana leaves. What a Filipino welcome! And just in keeping with the holiday spirit!

After lunch I got the special tour. The clinic is an open-air dirt lot that was very bare bones. There was a make shift cat house, rusty old dog kennels all in one row and fenced off areas for dogs that had behavior problems. There was also an office and a very minimal clinic where they operate and treat animals. Everyone who worked there was so happy to see the new kennels. They definitely stood out.

In the coming weeks I am going to have a meeting with the mayor’s daughter to try to get involved in some of the renovations that the city is apparently planning for the veterinary clinic. They will also have outreach programs in the coming weeks to educate poor families on animal care and give free medicine and vaccines for pets.