It’s recently been brought to our attention that a few members of our community are spreading false information about Have A Heart. In our continuing efforts to be completely transparent, we would like to give you some facts about the shelter so you can rest assured that your support is not misguided.
1. We are a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. We receive no government money. All of our funding comes from donations and grants.
2. We operate entirely with volunteer labor. Nobody is paid – not the board members, or the thrift store help, or the people answering the phone, or the volunteers caring for the animals, or the people transporting animals. This isn’t true with all shelters. But we do it because we love animals, the community needs our help, and we feel that this work is important to Marion County and surrounding communities. We get calls from all over the state and out-of-state begging for assistance. It is challenging and can be heartbreaking. We do this every day, 365 days per year. It does not matter if it’s 105 or -5 degrees outside, or there is an ice storm, or Yellville is flooded, or we are feeling under the weather and don’t want to get out of bed. We have animals that need us. Some of us have even wrecked our cars trying to get to the shelter in bad weather.
3. We do not make a profit from adoption fees or spay/neuter fees. We now operate a low cost spay/neuter clinic. The clinic and everything in it was paid for with donations and grant money. Several of our volunteers work tirelessly to write grant proposals to secure funding for facilities and programs. The veterinarians and technicians that perform the surgeries are not employees -they are contractors paid through grants and donations – specifically the Bissell Pet Foundation.
We are blessed to have this program. It allows us to charge only $25 to spay or neuter and vaccinate your pet. $25 does not begin to cover the cost of medical supplies or clinic overhead. Donations subsidize this program. The adoption fees we collect do not cover the actual costs involved in preparing an animal for adoption. Donations subsidize this, also. Costs for everything have dramaticallyincreased over the past 8 years, yet we have never increased our adoption fees.
Many of you think the local vets provide free care to animal shelters and rescue group. This is also not true. The local vets who provide emergency care to our animals are usually unable to discount their charges since these costs can be exorbitant. Currently we have a dog under heartworm treatment, a dog requiring surgery for a urinary tract problem, a dog with a gunshot wound to his leg and several animals under treatment for the common ailments of ringworm, upper respiratory infections and diarrhea. The $100 for a dog and $50 for a cat adoption no way cover the basic costs to adopt an animal let alone the additional costs to sometimes get them healthy enough to adopt. Also, don’t forget we have to cover the cost to keep the building running. Just like you, we pay electricity, water, gas, phone, internet access, mowing the grass and general upkeep and cleaning supplies (which can be expensive since we must disinfect everything multiple times a day).
To those of you who support us and consider the shelter to be an asset to the community, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. And “thank you” just isn’t enough.To those few people out there who are spreading misinformation, we cordially invite you to come to the shelter and find out how we operate. We’d be happy to show you around. In the meantime, here are some facts:
In 2023 we took care of 879 (675 dogs and 204 cats) animals at the Shelter, which does not include the approximately 1000 additional animals we sterilized in our community. Our annual Shelter expenditures including veterinary costs, medications, supply costs for food, utilities, cleaning and office supplies are approximately $100,000 annually. About 400 of those dogs were puppies that go to puppy rescues where we get no reimbursement for their vaccines or transport costs. Rescuing puppies only increases costs with no revenue. If the remaining 275 dogs and 204 cats were all adopted at the full adoption rate they would have brought in $27,500 for dogs and $10,200 for cats. That only totals $37,700 for adoption fees revenue. That brings in only 38% of what we need to keep the Shelter open. The Shelter makes no money off Spay and Neuter, those revenues go directly to the contractual veterinarians. Instead, the Shelter raises money to help spay and neuter animals in the community whose owners cannot afford even our low rates and provides food for animals owned by people who cannot afford to feed them.
We regret that it took rumors to cause us to take up this week’s newspaper space when it could have been used to feature animals who desperately want to find their furever home, but we felt it was important to give you the facts, not rumors. If you’d like to tour the Shelter, meet our adoptables, or volunteer, please give us a call at 870/449-7387 or drop by Have A Heart located at 657 Highway 202 West in Yellville during our normal business hours, Tuesday through Saturday, 9 am to 3 pm. We look forward to seeing you!