WE NEED YOUR HELP!

PLEASE SUPPORT OUR REBUILDING EFFORTS

It's hard to believe that more than a year has passed, since Hurricane Katrina devastated our hometown and the Gulf Coast region. Ever since the tragedy, all of us at Humane Society of Louisiana have been working tirelessly, first evacuating and saving the lives of our sanctuary animals, then operating "Camp Katrina," a grassroots disaster relief shelter.

Today, with our New Orleans facility destroyed, we have still managed to resume our former programs--against all odds. We are still caring for 300 animals each day, many of whom are housed at our original evacuation site in Tylertown—just two hours north of New Orleans. Centrally located amidst several counties and parishes without any public animal control services--all of which have been impacted by the disaster--we are working in the heart of communities, where animals are in desperate need.

We have also successfully reestablished our headquarters in the New Orleans metropolitan area, at our newly reopened Happy Tails Adoption Center, located at 4021 Jefferson Highway. From this base of operatons, we have been able to restart our important programs for animals, which we have operated in Louisiana for close to 20 years.

Each day, we receive urgent cries for help from the public, asking us to help them save the lives of animals in distress. In many instances, owners can no longer keep their pets, due to changed circumstances post-Katrina. Animal shelters in the parishes surrounding New Orleans area have seen dramatic increases in animal intakes of up to 30%, due to population shifts. We've regularly taken animals from them, but we can only do a fraction of the work that's needed, from our makeshift camp in the country. The nation's attention has long since moved on from the plight of the animals impacted by this devastating storm, but your help is still urgently needed to help us rebuild and help the animals who need us.

With many of our key members and donors displaced, we face a difficult road ahead, to keep our lifesaving progams in action. We're not an affiliate of any national humane group, nor do we receive any ongoing operating support from any larger parent agency. Sadly, although we have worked in New Orleans for close to 20 years and were one of the agencies most directly impacted by the storm, we have not received funding to fully compensate us for our destroyed shelter building or our uninsured losses. While tens of millions of dollars were raised to help Katrina animals, our New Orleans based charity received only a very small fraction of what was collected. Furthermore, we received a woefully inadequate insurance settlement for our uninhabitable shelter building. To make matters even worse, we must still pay a mortgage payment each month, for property which is clearly in need of demolition.

If you can help us at this difficult time of transition, we would sincerely appreciate your support. The Humane Society of Louisiana is one of the wonderful assets the city of New Orleans has to offer the animals and people of the region, and with your help, we can rise to the occasion for the animals who need us.

HURRICANE SEASON 2006