Five Questions With: Judy Salvadore

Judy Salvadore is president of the board of directors for the Friends of the Warwick Animal Shelter, which focuses on promotion of and fundraising for its shelter animals. She also is a longtime volunteer for the shelter. Here she discusses the work of the nonprofit Friends group.

PBN: How long have you been president of the Friends of the Warwick Animal Shelter and why did you assume this role?
SALVADORE:
I have been president for a few years now. I started as a volunteer, then advisory committee member and joined the board of directors in 2007. Friends of the Warwick Animal Shelter is a small, all volunteer, nonprofit, but we have very passionate board members, volunteers and supporters that all recognize the animals’ needs.
I have served on other nonprofit boards, some contentious, but with Friends, we all have the same vision as to what has to be done to make sure the animals never go without. It’s easy to volunteer your time for an organization’s mission when all of the members recognize that we must all work hard to raise money, be prudent with our donors’ funds and not be afraid to spend it to help the animals. Nothing makes us happier than seeing an abandoned, unwanted, stray or lost animal go home with a terrific family.

PBN: When did you first volunteer at the shelter and what have you found are its greatest needs?
SALVADORE:
I have been volunteering for the Warwick Animal Shelter since 1996. In 2000, City Councilman Carlo Pisaturo and shelter volunteers began advocating for a $1 million dollar bond question to build a new shelter since the old one was long past its useful life. Friends was formed to be sure that the bond money was spent on the project in the animals’ best interests and that the shelter would be a humane place for homeless animals. Voters passed the bond question with the most support in Warwick’s history.
After the question passed, I was asked to do the research on building a humane animal shelter for the city. The Warwick Animal Shelter is a state-of-the-art shelter with radiant heat flooring, air exchange and many other amenities that most municipal shelters don’t have. Since the city had limited funds to build and outfit their shelter and the shelter is restricted by a budget each year, Friends fund-raises all year long to make sure the animals have everything that they need to be healthy, comfortable and happy. Mayor Scott Avedisian and shelter Director Ann Corvin embrace the support.
When the shelter was built in 2003, there wasn’t enough bond money to install some amenities such as air conditioning in the dogs’ kennels. We got to work and raised the nearly $17,000. We have also funded other large projects such as epoxy floors in the cat room to prevents disease, a large outdoor exercise pen, a water filtering system, and surveillance camera system.
We are now connecting a generator that was donated by a supporter so the animals will never be cold in the winter or hot in the summer if the building loses electricity. More importantly, throughout the year, Friends pays for veterinary medical care, spay/neuter surgeries, special foods, special medicines, new equipment (like stainless cages) and more. It all adds up to a lot of money, which keeps us very busy!

PBN: You have some creative fund-raising initiatives like partnering with Come Green with Me to bring daily household products into homes. How did you come up with that and how’s it going?
SALVADORE:
Come Green with Me came to us through one of our volunteers, Kathy Boiardi. After she had a son a few years ago, Kathy began researching safer household products for her own home. She loved their products so much that she started working for the company. Kathy, like many of our volunteers, always looks for creative ways to raise money to benefit the shelter animals and we are very grateful that she is a successful and hard-working animal lover. Collaborating with other organizations can help the animals in many ways: promoting adoption, solving problems and or course, financially.

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PBN: Yours is a very small nonprofit. Name some of your other fund raising strategies and practices.
SALVADORE:
Friends of the Warwick Animal Shelter has a fund raiser planned for almost every month of the year. We host breakfasts, pasta dinners, bake sales, dog walks, craft shows, dog washes, cocktail parties and more. We sell apparel, candy and dog treats. Pet photos with Santa is Nov. 22 at the shelter.
Our biggest fundraiser of the year is the Cause for Paws Classic Car Show, held every June in Warwick right near the shelter. Next June will be our 8th annual classic car show and it has grown because we have a great show director (and animal lover) in Ruth Curtis-Napolitano. It takes so much work that she started planning next year’s show right after this year’s show ended.
We are an all-volunteer organization, so every dollar raised by Friends go towards the animals. We welcome new volunteers and new ideas for raising funds and bringing awareness to homeless animals: our monthly meetings are open to the public and notices are posted on our Facebook pages or people can stop by the shelter. We would love to meet you – the only requirement is that you love animals!

PBN: What do you consider your most important public awareness message and how do you promote it?
SALVADORE:
“Spay/neuter” and “adopt.” OK, so maybe that is two, but really it is one combined message. If people sterilized their animals, then the problem of overpopulation wouldn’t exist, at least not as much as it does now.
In 2012, the Rhode Island Department of Emergency Management, which tracks all private and municipal shelters in the state, estimated 6,353 dogs and 7,526 cats entered shelters here. For a small state, that is a lot of animals whose lives are in limbo.
With our support, Warwick City Council was one of the first cities in the state to pass an ordinance to require every owned cat to be sterilized. After Warwick, Cranston and East Providence required it, the state passed this law too. To facilitate compliance, the Warwick Animal Shelter hosts a twice monthly low-cost spay/neuter clinic for cats that is open to the public by appointment.
We see fewer litters of kittens now, which is a good thing especially for older adoptable cats that are typically overlooked in shelters.
We also supported the mandatory spay/neuter of pit bulls ordinance in Warwick. Shelters are filled with unwanted pit bulls and we wanted to reduce the amount coming into Warwick Animal Shelter. We love the misunderstood and misrepresented breed(s): mandatory spay neuter will help save dogs’ lives. Owners of pit bulls can have their dogs sterilized at greatly reduced prices at the Rhode Island Community Spay Neuter Clinic in Warwick. We look forward to the day of no more homeless animals but that can only happen if people fix their animals and adopt from a shelter.
Getting our messages out to the public used to be difficult until Facebook came along. Facebook has changed the way our animals are adopted, returned to their owners, how we promote our events, ask for help and advocate for animals. With almost 5,000 animal loving followers, “like” and “share” buttons have given many animals a way home or a second chance at happiness!

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