Animal shelter gets 501c3 status

The Henry County Animal Shelter in collaboration with the Humane Society worked to make part of the shelter a nonprofit agency. The shelter and residents will soon offer more services at lower costs.

Henry County Animal Control Officer Dan Flinkfelt will sit down with Pam Rogers from the Humane Society to do the necessary paperwork for the shelter. With less than year into the new shelter, progress continues by unleashed leaps and bounds.

With several different areas of the Humane Society entity, the organization approached the shelter with a nonprofit vacancy available.

“Donations can come into the shelter. We can offer spay and neutering clinics at a lower price with grants from Pet Smart Charities,” Flinkfelt said. “We must have a board separate from us with two members from the counties of Trimble and Henry and one person not affiliated with either. Overall,this will save the county and residents a lot of money.”

Flinkfelt explained that a board would decide what supplies, services and resources the shelter could be supplied with.  The shelter could receive more supplies, including surgical supplies. One of the major parts of becoming  a 501c3 nonprofit entity will mean the shelter will have its own spay and neuter clinic which will be Neuter Town.

“We think the name is something that will stick in your mind,” Flinkfelt said. “There may be a chance we can work with volunteer vets and vet technicians to make residents first spay or neuter free. Magistrate Roger Hartlage is helping us look into getting a free existing building from the government with our new status where the clinic could set up.”

As a nonprofit, the board could purchase supplies for the building, hire minimum staff and the shelter could also qualify for injured animal grants.

“People with low incomes that have a pet that has sustained an injury due to an accident or their pet becomes ill we could assist them in getting care,” Flinkfelt said. “Basic equipment for cages and kennels could be provided. We are looking into several different areas to see what we can get done.”

Other supplies such as food could easily be obtained for the shelter as a nonprofit. Several companies like Hill’s Science Diet and Pedigree have donation programs as long as the shelter has the 501c3 status.

“We may be able to offer services to senior citizens who don’t have access to a vehicle,” Flinkfelt said. “We may be able to get a transport vehicle that could be used to pick up animals that need to be altered and deliver them safely back to their owners.”
The nonprofit status also will diminish the cost to the county for having animals altered with rabies shots and getting microchipped.

The shelter plans to have a fundraiser including an auction/yard sale at the former Apollo Chopper building in Eminence with items donated such as rounds of golf from the Henry County Club.

“We are looking for volunteers to help out at the Kentucky Speedway for the 21, 22 in September for the races,” Flinkfelt said. “We are going to be ushers for both races. We will be earning donation money from the speedway to help out the shelter. We can bring as many people as we can, the more people that we bring the bigger the donation to the shelter. So if people would like to help out at the shelter please contact us. Our goal is to have 50 people.”

For more information visit the Henry Trimble Animal Shelter on Facebook. At www.facebook.com/henrytrimble.animalshelter or call (502)845-8050 or (502)255-0111

E-mail us about this article at news@hclocal.com.