Friday May 29, 2020 ~ VICTORIA, BC [Updated May 31, 2020]
by Mary Brooke ~ West Shore Voice News
An organization that for eight years has devoted its Boneless Project work to supporting street-resident people with food and supplies for their pets, has now launched a GoFundMe page.
During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the SAFARS donation bins and fund collection boxes are sometimes less accessible to people in stores and around the community.
Cash donations in the boxes were down by 95% early the first part of the pandemic response where people were asked to self-isolate in their homes and many businesses were closed.
The Boneless Project GoFundMe page makes donations easy in three ways:
- Etransfer: Send to safars.org@hotmail.com
- Cheque in the postal mail: SAFARS, PO Box 344, Sooke, BC V9Z1G1
- GoFundMe: for people to do online, toward the current $1,000 goal of the Boneless Project. The project not only provides food for pets but assists with the costs of spay/neuter services by qualified veterinary services.
How to donate:
The SAFARS Boneless Project GoFundMe page was first posted on May 25 and is accepting donations. So far, $120 in pledges has been achieved toward their $1,000 goal.
If you do get out and about, the SAFARS drop-off bins for pet food supplies and cash donations are at:
- Creature Pet Store, Bay St and Blanshard St., Victoria (pet food bin and coinbox)
- Kay’s Korner Antique Store, 337 Cook St., Victoria (coinbox)
- Paws on Cook, 359 Cook St, Victoria (pet food bin)
- Mr. Pet’s, Tillicum Mall, Saanich (pet food bin and coinbox)
- Wiskers & Waggs, 6703 West Coast Rd, Sooke (pet food bin)
- Village Food Markets, 6661 Sooke Rd, Sooke (bin inside the store)
Knowing where the needs are:
The donations received by SAFARS are redistributed in a thoughtful and researched way to where they are needed most. That now also includes to some of the hotels and housing projects where about 340 people (who were recently living in the tent encampments in Topaz Park and along Pandora Avenue) have been provided indoor accommodation along with their pets.
That new housing type includes ‘wrap around supports’ by BC Housing, so that the newly housed people can work toward more stable living conditions going forward.
Provincial Health Officer Dr Bonnie Henry said on April 28 during the flurry of changes due to COVID-19 that pets are recognized as ‘part of the family’ for the homeless people, and that taking their pets along was certainly part of the changes for that sector of the (now previously) unhoused population in Victoria.
The housing relocation effort was organized by the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction together with BC Housing and also the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions.
Helping establish the pet-support sector:
SAFARS organizer Margarita Dominguez has in the past worked directly with providing some of these donations to other organizations who support the homeless. But her own legwork to visit the homeless people around Victoria over the years has given her the opportunity to really know the people in those communities with regard to the needs of their pets, mostly dogs.
Dominguez and her team of volunteers were the ones who initiated three different pet food banks in Victoria, at Our Place Society, Victoria Cool Aid’s Rock Bay Landing Emergency Shelter, and Salvation Army’s Stan Haggen Center for Families. It’s a specialized sort of service by a community organization that is not seen in many communities in BC.
Based in Sooke, SAFARS also provides animal rescue services, particularly for cats and also dogs.
The group’s overall mission is to prevent the abandonment of animals.
===== RELATED:
Homeless people leaving tent encampments can take pets along (April 28, 2020)
Homeless encampments in Victoria wrapping up May 20 (May 20, 2020)