Gateway Pet Guardians: REDI Implementation Grant Report

How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?

The Petfinder Foundation REDI Implementation Grant helped us fund walk-in adoptions for our community. The community of East St. Louis is a resource desert that is often left behind and we are the first-ever animal welfare organization to operate in the area. This grant allowed us funding to host and market walk-in adoptions for East St. Louis, which increased our adoptions to residents in our service area 80% over the previous year. We were able to adopt out more pets than ever before, which then frees up space for us to help take in and adopt out more pets who need us.

How many pets did this grant help?

100

Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.

We took in a sweet little shih tzu whom we named Garland. She was severely matted and had to have her foot amputated due to the severity of the injuries from the matting.

While she was recovering, a kind woman named Eula, who is from East St. Louis, walked in looking for a small lap dog. We introduced Eula to Garland and she immediately fell in love with her.

Eula was about to have a kidney transplant and Garland was still healing, so we reserved Garland for Eula for a couple weeks. During that time, Eula bought Garland everything in pink because she said that Garland was a princess.

After her surgery, Eula adopted her princess, Garland, and they continued to heal together and are living happily ever after together.