Animal Friends of the Valleys is hitting the bricks to raise funds for a $10.5
million state-of-the-art animal shelter in southwest Riverside County.
Each of the 3,501 commemorative bricks is being sold for $50. Their sale is
expected to raise more than $175,000 toward Animal Friends of the Valleys'
eventual purchase of the shelter.
Buyers may request their bricks be engraved with the names of beloved pets,
relatives and friends. When the new shelter opens in late 2010, visitors can
view the bricks in a tree-shaded courtyard at the shelter's main entrance.
One of the bricks will bear the name of Angela Garcia, who passed away in
November at age 87. Staff members at the shelter purchased a brick bearing
Angela's name as a gift for her daughter-in-law, Laura Garcia, who has been a
dispatcher at the shelter for seven years.
"It's like a memorial, it's helping the person live on," Laura Garcia said.
"I never would have thought of giving a gift like this until somebody did it
for me. It meant a lot to me, it made me cry."
Willa Bagwell, a founder and the executive director of Animal Friends of
the Valleys, said the commemorative bricks are a wonderful tribute to loved
ones on holidays and special occasions when finding a meaningful gift with a
special message can be challenging.
"This is perfect for animal lovers, particularly those who have supported
our mission to build a modern shelter with animal rooms, treatment facilities
and meeting spaces to provide humane care to the thousands of animals we take
in every year," Bagwell said.
Animal Friends of the Valleys was established in 1987 as a nonprofit
organization offering community education programs, pet adoption and animal
services to the cities of Lake Elsinore, Canyon Lake, Murrieta Temecula and
Wildomar in addition to unincorporated Riverside County
from Corona to the San Diego County border.
The group serves nearly 10,000 animals each year in a shelter that has
grown cramped and outdated. The new 32,000-square-foot shelter will accommodate
twice as many dogs, cats, rabbits and other small animals in the rapidly
growing communities of southwest Riverside County, Bagwell said. Construction
of the new center is more than half way completed.
Animal Friends, which boasts more than 400 dedicated volunteers,
has been setting aside funding for a new shelter for the past 13 years. When
the curbs and gutters were installed and building frames were lifted into place
in November, Bagwell said she watched her longtime dream unfolding right before
her eyes.
The new shelter, which will include special intake areas for
animals, modern sanitation and safety measures for employees and visitors, is
expected to open in the fall of 2010.
"We believed in a dream because we believe these discarded
animals have a right to be treated with care and respect," Bagwell said, as she
viewed construction under way at the new shelter. This really is a dream come
true."
Animal Friends of the Valleys has invested nearly $700,000 for
the new shelter and has provided a 99-year lease on the property - once valued
at $1.5 million. The Southwest Community Financing Authority, a joint-powers authority,
was formed in 2004 to finance and build the shelter, which Animal Friends of
Valleys hopes to purchase and manage.
"We are thrilled to have a part in bringing this new shelter to
the region," Bagwell said. "We proudly provide animal-control services in five
cities. We are required to take in every animal that comes to our shelter. How
we treat these creatures while they are in our care says a lot about who we are
as a community."
