Friends of Southern Ocean County Animal Shelter host bake sale fundraiser at Petsmart

The Friends of Southern Ocean County Animal Shelter will host a bake sale and pet adoption event at Petsmart, located at 219 Stafford Park Blvd. in Manahawkin, on Friday, Feb. 14, through Sunday, Feb. 16, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Valentine’s Day cookies, cakes, brownies and candies will be available for purchase.

Due to a limited number of available pets, the event will mainly serve as a fundraiser for FOSOCAS, to help cover publicity and pet care costs.

Photo via NAFC Animal Shelter
Cats and kittens are available for adoption
through the Southern Ocean County Animal
Shelter and the Manahawkin Petsmart.

“We have the very good problem of not having a tremendous number of dogs and cats right now that need to be adopted,” said Dorothy Reynolds, president of FOSOCAS. “I don’t know how to account for this, whether it’s just the cold weather, and they’re not finding cats, or people aren’t coming out and surrendering them, or just what it is. It’s a nice problem to have, but I don’t quite know what the reason is and whether all of a sudden, when spring comes, we’re going to be inundated again with animals. That could very well happen,” she added.

“There’s really no way to know this,” agreed Linda Bonvie, a volunteer with FOSOCAS. “But the shelter is like that old joke on the weather: just wait a day. Tomorrow, who knows how many kitties or dogs there might be. I hate to make people feel that they don’t have to help out by adopting, fostering, dog walking, or cat socializing, especially with kitten season right around the corner, because today there aren’t too many pets waiting to be adopted. Come back tomorrow,” she added.

The shelter is in great need of dog walkers, Bonvie urged.

Funds raised during the Petsmart event will help cover costs for the Friends’ trap-neuter-release program, which has served as an effective approach for keeping the area’s feral cat population in check. The money will also help pay for veterinarian bills for animals that are surrendered to the shelter with more complicated health issues.

“That’s quite expensive,” Reynolds emphasized.

A portion of the funds acquired during the event will go toward paying for the medical bills of an 8-month-old rescued kitten that has needed surgery due to a severely broken femur.

“It had been neglected by its owner, so it required special surgery because the leg had to be rebroken and set again,” said Reynolds. “That’s one of the things the Friends likes to take care of, that we could not take care of if we didn’t have all the donations from the generous people who contribute to our funds.”

The white and brown tiger kitten is currently in foster care. Anyone interested in adopting the kitten, or any other available pets, can fill out an application at Petsmart. Pictures of the dogs and cats from the local shelter will be showcased during the event.

“Who knows, by then we might have a whole bunch more (pets),” said Reynolds.

For more information, visit fosocas.org or call 609-978-0127.

— Kelley Anne Essinger


This article was published in The SandPaper.