April 2012 News & Update

HOME VAN PET CARE PROJECT, INC. – NEWS & UPDATE – April 2012
From: Elizabeth Howard, Coordinator

This month Home Van Pet Care Project celebrates five years of providing pet food for homeless and low income citizens of our community. That’s a lot of dogs and cats and people!

Our major news this month is a film screening that Cinema Verde Environmental Film & Arts will co-sponsor with us as part of Civic Media Center Documentary series:

Monday April 30, 2012 at 7:00PM
Civic Media Center, 433 S. Main Street in Gainesville.

These two award winning films are timely, compassionate and inspiring. In our community, hundreds of individuals and families, some of them living with beloved companion animals, live homeless and without running water. We are grateful to our sister group, the original Home Van, feeder of the multitudes, as well as Trish Riley, Director of Cinema Verde Gainesville and to Civic Media Center for supporting us in this event. We hope you can join us.

About the films: Cardboard (10 minutes) was written & directed by High School Freshman Tara-Nicole Azarian, who received an award at this year’s Cinema Verde Environmental Film & Arts Festival. This docu-drama asks: "If faced with adversity, what would you do to keep your family together?"

In Carbon for Water (22 minutes) filmmakers Evan Abramson and Carmen Elsa Lopez introduce audiences to the inspiring people of Kenya’s Western Province who face extreme hardships in their lives and explore one company’s innovative solution for improving the health of millions of Kenyans and the environment in which they live.

Admission is by donation and we look forward to seeing new faces and many who we already know.

UPDATES: A Storage shed was donated by caring friends and has been transported to a convenient location where it will be used to store more of those items that are donated (and which we always need more of) like tarps, rope, cat carriers, dog crates, collars, leashes and non-perishable items in general. This will help a great deal in distribution of needed items.

Bruiser, the big white older dog now has a couple of volunteer friends who will help with transport and food delivery. Bruiser needs nutritional and tasty canned foods that he can eat easily. His family provides him with several comfy beds so he does rest well and appreciates your good wishes. We always need to keep a supply of dry dog food and we appreciate if you can donate when you can.

We are in need of any size bags of cat food. We support one colony, the Tent City Tribe, which has not been relocated, and also little Silver and Gold who are doing well in their foster home. We also distribute quite a quantity of dry and canned cat food at our food distribution time on Wednesdays at the Downtown Library as well as to various campsites. All the kitties seem to like Friskies and Meow Mix so those are favorites.

We support spay and neuter for both dogs and cats and help with transport to local clinics when we can. It is hard sometimes, since we all do love those baby dogs and cats. But sadly, there are not enough homes for them and many are euthanized at Animal Services where they bear that burden. We can give referrals to local spay/neuter clinics, just give a call and we will try to help.

We hope you will join us for the films on April 30 at 7:00 PM at Civic Media Center. Just call for more information: Elizabeth Howard, 352-473-9423.

To donate pet food or funds, call Elizabeth for drop-off location or email holisticliz@hotmail.com. You can mail checks c/o Elizabeth Howard, P.O. Box 14305, Gainesville, FL 32604 or PayPal on our blog at http://homevanpetcareproject.blogspot.com. You can also like us on Facebook. We always need and appreciate your donations and good wishes and thank you for all the help you give us.