Furever Friends Rescue of Appanoose, Inc is organized exclusively for charitable and educational purposes, and for the prevention of cruelty to animals, and including for such purposes, the making of distributions to organizations under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (or the corresponding section of any future Federal tax code.) We are a volunteer organization dedicated to reducing the number of unwanted dogs and animals through your support and donations.  

 OPEN LETTER TO SUPPORTERS OF FUREVER FRIENDS RESCUE 

We have been blessed to have such wonderful support over the last several years.  We formed in 2016, and after years of disappointment we finally found a location to build our shelter.  We are now approaching our first anniversary of serving dogs in our community at our Centerville facility. In that time, we have had hundreds of dogs come in as wretched neglected or abused animals and leave in the arms of a loving new companion or family that will love them for the rest of their lives.  What a wonderful thing!  We take helpless abused or neglected dogs and feed them, shelter them, vaccinate them, spay or neuter them, and provide affection and healthy exercise. When they are once again happy, healthy dogs we bring them together with a loving person or family that will give them a long and happy life.  What a win-win situation if there ever was one!  Unfortunately, all of this takes a lot of time and money.  

As one can imagine, the expenses we incur meeting the needs of all the animals we serve add up quickly.  We have the capacity (both in our Intake building and in our main building) to house up to 60 dogs.  We also maintain a separate area dedicated exclusively to dogs that receive boarding and daycare services.  In all, this means we can be caring for up to 75 dogs at any given time.
Although the Furever Friends Board and our employees have tried to inform our community of our mission and the services we provide, it has become clear to us that significant misunderstandings have persisted about this and our role in the community. We feel these misconceptions may be tainting people’s perceptions of our organization and hindering our ability to foster strong partnerships with individuals, families, and businesses in our community. This is exceptionally disappointing, as we are now sounding the alarm that we are suffering financially.  Our monthly expenses have consistently exceeded our donations.  
Therefore, it is important that we correct any misunderstandings, as we need everyone to feel comfortable with what we are truly about and have the confidence in us to make monthly donations. This may not answer all your questions, but please come to us with ANY questions you may have.  We will answer it to the best of our ability.

Here are the main questions we have had, based on comments on social media, calls, and emails:

1. How are you having financial issues when Furever Friends is operated by a team of volunteers?

This is not true.  We do have MANY wonderful volunteers and they do a lot of hard work.  However, we do not have enough volunteers.  Also, our volunteers only come for a small amount of time, usually a couple of hours.  Our business hours are from 7 am to 7 pm.  We must hire a staff of workers to fill these hours.  We have 2 full-time employees and several part-time employees.  Their salaries range from $11.00/ hour to $15.00/hour.  Payroll and payroll taxes are the biggest expense we have each month (see information below about our monthly expenses).

Our employees work extremely hard for their minimal pay.  They come in and let out dogs to go run, play, and potty.  While dogs are away from their kennels, the kennels are thoroughly cleansed and disinfected, and food and water bowls are cleaned and filled. Then the common areas (hallways) are mopped and disinfected and blankets are washed and dried.  While all of this is happening, our staff members greet our boarding and daycare dogs and get them settled and answer the phone and door for general inquiries.  They do this for all the dogs in BOTH of our buildings, again this may be up to 75 dogs.  And once they finish, it is time to start over and do it all over again from the top.  This routine happens 4 times a day, every day.

2. Did you know that we offer BOARDING AND DAYCARE? 

Unfortunately, many people are STILL unaware that we offer boarding and daycare at a very competitive rate.  

Even before we opened, we knew that we could not survive as a shelter without some form of money-making enterprise.  We decided to make boarding and daycare our way of survival.  We designed our building to separate the boarding and daycare dogs from our adoptable dogs. They have a separate room, they are let out for potty and play separately, and they get extra attention throughout the day.  They are let out a minimum of 4 times during our 12-hour workday.

And even though we have very generous hours of 7 am to 7 pm, we allow for special drop-off and pick-up times with an appointment.  This offers so much flexibility for those that work off hours or have unique travel arrangements.

3. Did you know that our BOARDING and DAYCARE dogs don’t mix with our rescue dogs?

We take great care of our boarding and daycare dogs, as our ability to continue offering these services is key to our financial ability to remain open.  These dogs are the first dogs to be let out to play and potty.  Their kennels are the first to be cleaned and refreshed with clean blankets.  We let out our boarding and daycare dogs 4 times a day and they can get extra attention if requested.

4. Did you know that we have a public dog park?

We DO!!  There has been discussion of a Centerville City dog park, yet we at Furever Friends Rescue have a dog park!  
The park is open to the public during operation hours of 7 am to 7 pm.  The park offers both an area for larger dogs and an area for smaller dogs or for dogs that need to be separate from other dogs.

However, due to a fencing issue we must temporarily allow the public access only to the small dog section.  Our intake animals need to use the main area for their recreation area.  We expect this to be corrected in the next several weeks.  We will provide an update when the Park is fully open.  Sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your understanding.

5. We know you receive a lot of dog food donations; therefore, you must not have many expenses?

We very much appreciate all the donations of items we may need, especially dog food.  We do indeed go through a lot of dog food each day.  Unfortunately, we don’t receive enough donated dog food to last, and we end up having to purchase our own supply.  We are blessed that several local businesses that sell dog food give us good pricing, but this is still a large expense.

Our biggest expense, as mentioned above, is our payroll and payroll taxes. Yes, despite our tax-free status we must pay payroll taxes.

Next would be our veterinary bills to care for and then spay or neuter our dogs.

Then we have our mortgage, our electric bill, our propane bill, our water bill, our insurance bills, our bill for supplies, and the cost of any other item not covered by donations (including food).

All our expenses typically cost us over $20,000/ month.  Thus far, we have brought in around $15,000-$20,000/ month in donations, meaning that we have been LOSING between $4,000-$6,000/ month.  THIS IS UNSUSTAINABLE without help.

Since we are a private corporation, we won’t share our monthly assets and liabilities, but to help everyone understand how quickly our expenses grow, we are willing to share the approximate average monthly expenditures we have had for the first four months of 2024:

Payroll/ Payroll taxes $14,000
Mortgage payment:  $1,900
Veterinary bills:  $3,000
Dog food/ Supplies         $500
Electricity                 $650
Water         $150
Propane for the past winter $1,500

6. Have you asked for grants or government help?

Yes, we apply for grants all the time.  In fact, we have been awarded 3 Appanoose County Community Fund Grants.  We have used those funds for fencing and additional kennels.  We have also asked for governmental help in the form of assistance from the very communities we serve.  This is where it gets sticky, a bit political, and extremely frustrating.

When we were in our formation and development period as an entity looking for either land to build on or a building to renovate to establish our shelter, we approached the County Board of Supervisors, the City of Centerville, and the other major municipalities such as Moulton, Moravia, Mystic, Numa, Exline, Cincinnati, and even, Seymour (which is actually in Wayne County). We approached them on the expectation of opening soon and our ability to assist with their stray dog issues.  We ended up with some money to help us get started but many promises of assistance were predicated on us opening the shelter.  Some of those promises were significant enough to be included as part of the business plan we presented to our lending institution to secure the loan to purchase the land and construct our facility.

VERY SADLY, many of those previous promises were hollow!  Now that we are open and we are facing our looming mortgage payments, along with all our operating expenses, we are hearing a lot of, “Sorry, we love your purpose, but we don’t have the funds.”  Meanwhile, our bills, including the mortgage, keep coming.  We don’t have the funds either.  

On a positive note, the leaders of the City of Centerville are trying.  We have nothing but good things to say about Jason Fraser and Mike O’Connor.  And we have some good friends on the Council.  But, again, too many of these politicians look at the numbers and consider that its “just for dogs” and vote “NO.”  We have even heard of some councilmen in one of the smaller towns that pondered “why not just shoot them” instead of paying us to shelter them.

By comparison, a new shelter facility was built in Mahaska County a few months before we opened.  The County and the City of Oskaloosa have pledged a combined subsidy of over $100,000.  In comparison, Appanoose County is only going to give us a one-time payment of $10,000 (much less than the $30,000 mentioned prior to our opening).  While we haven’t finalized an agreement with the City of Centerville, we know that it too will fall way below the commitment from Oskaloosa. 

Again, we may not have answered or addressed all your questions and concerns but hopefully this letter helps to address some of the misunderstandings out there.  Please let us know if you have any other questions.  We will answer them the best we can.

Also, please consider helping us with our “365 Challenge.”  To help celebrate our anniversary, we are trying to get 365 donations of $365.00 (one dollar for every day we have been open)!!  

Your generosity is SO APPRECIATED!

Thank you,

The Board of Directors, Furever Friends Rescue of Appanoose, Inc.