by Noella Noelophile
Three weeks from today is Christmas!
Could you be an “elf” for Operation Santa Paws?
Every year, Operation Santa Paws collects food, toys and supplies for abused and abandoned animals in shelters.
Prior to the pandemic, Long Beach “Chief Inspiration Officer” Justin Rudd would gather community members for a Saturday visit to local animal shelters.
Participants would visit and play with the shelter pets–and several may have come home with a new, “furrever” family member.
That particular aspect of “Operation Santa Paws” isn’t listed as happening this year. But “Operation Santa Paws” continues.
Can you help?
Justin’s nonprofit Community Action Team and Haute Dogs would like to know if you or your organization can get involved. Here’s how:
1. Download and print this “donate” poster, from the Haute Dogs website, and attach it to a large box or plastic tub.
2. Set up the donation box at your office. Or ask to set it up at a pet store, veterinarian office, your church, school or other organization that would like to help.
3. Attach this “wish list” or offer it as a handout to anyone who would like to donate.
4. Choose a date by which you’ll deliver the donations to a local shelter or to a participating location in the Los Angeles/Orange County area. Justin and company will pick up the donations from participants listed on their Haute Dogs page and deliver them to the shelters on the Saturday before Christmas: December 17th.
5. Then, tell family, friends and anyone else who loves animals as much as you do, that you’re making Christmas brighter for shelter pets and would love to have them help if they can! You can also alert your local newspaper’s community editor, public radio station etc.
6. And on the date you’ve chosen, pick up the donations and deliver to your favorite shelter or run them by one of the participating locations.
7. If you’re delivering to a local shelter, don’t forget to visit the animals. Warning: some of them are great at self-promotion. You may just wind up with a new family member.
Our eleven-year-old kitty, “Snuggles”, a/k/a Master of the Persuasive Mieuw, can attest to that.