Bucks SPCA Marks Fundraising Milestone

Every day, people walk into the Bucks County SPCA in Lahaska to give up their pets.

Some are moving and can’t take their cats and dogs with them. Others are getting divorced, and still others can’t afford – or don’t want – to care for their animals any more.

But too many pet owners in Upper Bucks find the two-hour round-trip drive to Buckingham and back impossible or inconvenient.

That is just one reason why the county’s SPCA decided to build a second shelter.

“It’s an hour drive down here sometimes,” Beth Kittrell said Friday. “And that can be the difference between whether an animal is surrendered to us or just turned out on a road or at a park.”

SPCA leaders began talking a couple of years ago about plans for the future, Kittrell said. The group will mark its 100th anniversary in 2012, and while Bucks County has changed greatly in the past several decades, the SPCA’s shelter in Lahaska has not.

“It was decided that the time was right to go into another shelter,” said Kittrell, who volunteered at the Lahaska shelter for six years before being chosen to head up the group’s development efforts.

“It was increasing difficult to service parts of Upper Bucks,” Kittrell said. “It was time to build a second place, to create a second base of operations for all our programs.”

The Bucks SPCA has raised $2.6 million toward the construction and outfitting of a new shelter, the group announced this week. The total fundraising target is $5 million said Kittrell

The new shelter will be built in Richland Township and is on-pace to be opened by the end of the year, Kittrell said Friday.

To raise money for the building and new programs, the SPCA last year launched its first-ever capital campaign. Recent donations include:

• a Bucks County Foundation grant to expand efforts to spay and neuter feral or at-risk cats
• a Community Grant from the Rotary Club of Doylestown that covered the cost of training a new Humane Society Police Officer
• a $10,000 grant from the Grundy Foundation
• a $20,000 grant from the First Savings Community Foundation

Those donations join five large donations of $100,000 or more, Kittrell said.

But money is coming in from individuals, too, including kids like James Hogan. 

Hogan, 12, from Newtown, recently donated $600 to the SPCA’s campaign by making and selling wallets crafted from duct tape, Kittrell said.

As the fundraising continues and the plans for the new shelter progress, the shelter’s workers and volunteers continue to fulfill their daily mission: caring for unwanted, abused and neglected animals across Bucks County, and educating the public about animal welfare issues.

Just recently, the SPCA pulled 24 sheep, four dogs, three cats, and two birds from one home, Kittrell said.  Volunteers also pulled 14 Pomeranians from another home - which soon grew to 16 when one of the dogs gave birth at the shelter.

They’re just part of the estimated 3,500 to 4,000 animals that come to the Bucks County SPCA each year, Kittrell said.

“All sorts of animals come through, and we’re prepared for all of them,” she said. “We’ll be even better prepared for them, thanks to our capital campaign.”