HOT SPRINGS VILLAGE ANIMAL WELFARE LEAGUE

(1) To provide humane care and treatment for companion animals needing protection in the area served by the League while providing a temporary shelter for stray or unwanted animals.
(2) To maintain a vigorous adoption program for companion animals, to include health screening, vaccinations and mandatory spay/neutering.
(3) To work proactively to reunite lost animals with their owners.
(4) To support and organize spay/neuter clinics, trap, neuter and release programs (TNR) and other efforts that will control the overpopulation of companion animals.
(5) To increase collaboration with other rescue groups and partners (including national networks) that will result in more successful pet adoptions.
(6) Educate the youth in our local communities about respectful care of all animals, including companion animals.

The League will meet these goals by focusing on humane treatment, prevention of cruelty, and relief of suffering among animals. The League will promote rescue and adoption of companion animals through multiple media, including online pet promotions (Petfinder, Adopt-a-Pet, RescueMe.org and others), ads in local newspapers, flyers in local veterinary offices, and postings on Facebook and other social media outlets. We will organize and support spay/neuter clinics at four surrounding volunteer fire stations at least four times a year while raising awareness of the need for community compliance to spay/neuter all of their pets. Our spay/neuter effort is not limited to the scheduled low/no cost clinics, for throughout the year we will continue to take additional pets that are owned and not up for adoption to our veterinarian for sterilization and rabies vaccinations, as well as taking feral animals in the TNR effort. AWL will support and encourage volunteers who take adoptable pets to Petco in a nearby city every Saturday for adoption. AWL will focus also on the safety of volunteers and adopters and will have those animals that are assessed to be adoptable sterilized and immunized by a veterinarian before placing in a home. The League will work cooperatively with the Hot Springs Village Property Owners Association (POA) in providing for such care and treatment at the POA Shelter. And finally, to achieve our main goal of placing rescued companion animals into loving homes, the League will work positively with other rescue and animal welfare organizations and shelters and will work proactively to reunite lost animals with their owners.

AWL is a completely volunteer organization and has dedicated volunteers who put in numerous hours with expertise in animal care, medical care, communications, marketing, business organization, and other areas. Because of this remarkable commitment, the League has NO paid employees or executives, and no personnel costs; our expenses only pay for animal veterinary care, food, and necessary office supplies and other business or advertising costs related to our activities or fundraising events. AWL has been allotted limited space in a physical animal shelter through an agreement (MOU) with the Property Owners Association. To augment this space and increase our ability to save more animals, AWL has developed an active foster program so that now we have more adoptable animals in foster care that can be housed in the shelter facility. The AWL has through the years established partner relationships with other humane societies and rescue groups in Arkansas and other states to help place animals into loving homes outside our area. The League is now engaging support through social media and the Internet to increase our donations and enhance our volunteer involvement. The AWL works extensively with national animal support groups such as the Petco Foundation and Petfinder to market our available pets, and also to secure grants for specific goals, such a spay/neuter efforts in the outlying rural community. Furthermore, committed volunteers take adoptable cats and dogs to Petco in surrounding cities each Saturday for adoption events. The League continues to investigate ways to gather donations locally and promote our rescue efforts in our area of service.

The ultimate intended impact is that every adoptable companion animal that comes to AWL through the POA Animal Control intake or through the community animal rescue will be placed in a forever home. To achieve this goal, one other impact needs to be accomplished: the sterilization of every animal in the surrounding areas that is not owned for breeding purposes. If all animals are wanted at birth and not considered "discards," then the animals in our area would have a chance to be adopted and have a loving home. One obstacle AWL faces is that the culture of the state and our surrounding rural area supports freely roaming dogs and cats, and the state does not have strict spay/neuter laws. AWL has sought to overcome this resistance to neutering through our education program by providing "Kind News" (from The Humane Society of the United States) for all students in grades 1-6 in surrounding school districts. However, another obstacle to more compliance with spay/neuter efforts is the poverty level of the surrounding rural communities, which makes it improbable that these families will provide basic veterinary care much less afford the expense to spay/neuter their pets.

In this regard, we have reenergized our efforts to expand access to our Spay Neuter clinics to private owners in our surrounding communities. Beginning in 2023, we began seeking partnerships both nationally and within the state of Arkansas to identify new ways to expand our reach. In early 2024, we launched a new program with new partnerships with a network of Arkansas rescue organizations, a mobile Spay Neuter non-profit, and a formidable national rescue organization. Our goal is to continue to expand this program in our local communities and to help it grow throughout Arkansas.

With few programs in the state of Arkansas to support cats and kittens, the population continues to grow. In 2024, we have begun efforts to expand our partnership with the Property Owners Association and will soon begin fundraising to build an addition onto the shelter to reduce the overbearing burden that currently rests on our foster base. This will allow us to house all of the cats and kittens that come into our care in a single location - separate from the dogs. This will allow us to improve the level of care, reduce exposure to disease, and improve live outcome rates. Additionally, it will allow us to concentrate the efforts of our volunteers in a facility that is designed solely for the felines that find themselves in need of our care.