(Milford)– The Humane Society of Northwest Iowa has been awarded a $15,000 matching grant from Andrea Waitt Carlton to make improvements to its dog area at its facility in Milford. The organization’s Melanie Becker says it’s housed in what’s known as the “Chelsea Building” that was constructed in 1996…
“We’ve been working on raising funds for our dog area for about the last year, here, and this is the second grant that she’s offered us on this project. The first one was a $25,000 she just gave us outright, and then the second one, of course, was the $15,000 that she challenged us to get matching funds for.”
Becker says the dog area is in desperate need of repairs…
“We went to work about a year and-a-half ago and with an architect, on a design for a new area and getting kennels and just re-doing that, so Haley can do her dog training in there as well, like in the winter. So we have our kennels on order. We have raised about $111,000 so far, so we need about $30,000 to $50,000 more to do the rest of it. With the different grants and stuff that we’ve raised, we’re doing that. We’ve got to re-do the floor and fix the concrete. We got a new furnace which we needed for the winter, that went out, and then we’ll do some construction on the building itself.”
She adds that they have until March 31st in which to raise the $15,000 needed in order for them to receive the matching grant…
“You can either mail your payment to the Humane Society at 607 28th Street, Milford, Iowa…51351; or they can go on our website and there’s a button on there that you can donate there; otherwise they can just call the Humane Society and they can just do a payment over the phone, as well.”
Becker notes Andrea Waitt Carlton is a founding member of the Humane Society of Northwest Iowa and donated the first $100,000 to construct the Chelsea Building in 1996.
