What if the Alliance for Animals did not exist?

Marmalade was abandoned when her people moved away and left the small orange and white cat locked in the basement. By the time a neighbor discovered Marmalade a month later, she was terrorized, starving, and in desperate need of help.

Still, Marmalade was luckier than most. She was rescued, and she found her way to the Alliance for Animals. Here she received all the food, veterinary care and loving attention needed to get her back on the road to recovery. Today she is the center of attention in her new home, cherished for her wonderful personality.

What if we weren't here?

Thanks to you, we were. For the past ten years you have helped the Alliance be the one organization who is there for the animals everyone else forgets. We are here for the sick and injured, we are here for the cast-offs. We are here for the animal caretakers on a fixed income, the poor, the disabled, the elderly. Many humane societies and rescue groups also depend on our low-cost neutering and veterinary services. Your generosity and support is what allows us to carry on this lifesaving work. Thanks to you, we are here to help forgotten animals like Marmalade.
 

But what if we weren't here?

The Alliance for Animals is the only organization in New England providing high-volume, low-cost spay/neuter services to the public. Inner-city pets come for spaying and neutering instead of filling up the city streets and pounds with half-wild, unwanted puppies or kittens; we are here too, for animals in need of medical care who would not otherwise receive that help, because their caretakers could not afford it. These are a few of the miracles we are privileged to see each day.

Yet there is even more, because the Clinic is also a center for neighborhood rescue. Every week neighbors come to our Clinic doors, bearing broken spirits, broken bodies. So often it is little children, bringing us injured and abandoned animals, imploring us to help. Nine year-old Jason with Pickles, a tiny kitten thrown from a window; 12 year-old Caroline and Diane with orphan kitten Tux, stranded in a nearby housing project; injured birds, a baby squirrel, two abandoned hamsters, four guinea pigs. Petey, whose leg was crushed and left untreated when a gang tried to turn the loving pit-bull terrier into a fighter -- the leg could not be saved and had to be amputated; Misty the labrador lost an eye but found a home. Lazarus the cat was starving; he was found with his leg entangled in a collar and unable to fend for himself. He weighed only three pounds when he came to us. When he left our shelter for his new home he was plump, and shiny, and even a little sassy! Thanks to AfA all of these animals found help and healing. At the Alliance, with your help, we help provide the happy endings to so many sad stories.

No one else helps these animals. They are not beautiful when they come to us. They are not cute and cuddly. They are old, sick, injured, scared, lonely, mistrusting. But still they are the the lucky ones, because someone cared enough to rescue them and bring them to us. And we have been there to help because you have supported our mission. We wish we could help even more needy animals.

We recuse dogs with kennel cough who will be destroyed at another shelter, and provide foster care until they are well enough to be returned for adoption. We provide foster care for pets whose caretakers are hospitalized or homeless, saving them from abandonment or ``euthanasia''. We are here for countless nursing mothers, and orphaned babies, too young or vulnerable to be in a shelter. We are here to counsel caretakers about elderly pets, neighborhood strays, or grieving the loss of a beloved animals. We were the first, and still the only organization in Boston offering trap/neuter/return for the humane population control of feral cats. We were the first, and still the only shelter in Boston providing rescue and no-kill adoption services for inner-city animals. We were the first, and still the only organization in Boston providing spay/neuter for every animal before leaving our shelter, without exception. We were the first, and still the only organization in New England providing high-volume, low-cost spay/neuter and veterinary services to more than 5,000 animals each year.

Each year we ask you, our members and supporters, to help us by renewing your membership with the Alliance, or by giving an extra donation to keep our work going. If you have given recently, please accept our heartfelt gratitude. Rescuing animals is very costly work, especially when our focus is on the neediest. No one else does what we do. But we need help. We need lots of help to keep it all going, because we know only too well what would happen if we weren't there.

We struggled so hard to start these programs precisely because we saw what was happening to the animals. They were suffering and dying, needlessly, because there was no one to turn to. We vowed to be that place where anyone could go, regardless of income, language, address, resources. We vowed to listen when people called for help or information. We vowed to be there for adult animals, not just the puppies and kittens. We vowed to set the highest standards of care, even without the big budgets of the other organizations, and we have succeeded...

Warmest regards,
Donna Bishop
President.