Thanks for helping New Orleans Pets, from the Stetars

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

THANK YOU. Your support of our New Orleans trip was beyond generous!

The trip went well, and we brought home a beautiful, little girl named Gracie. She is a 10-week old yellow lab mix. No doubt, you will see her walking us around the neighborhood over the holidays.

Because of your help we were able to provide Animal Rescue New Orleans (ARNO) and the Southern Animal Foundation (SAF) with $520 in monetary donations, a $50 gift card from PetsMart, and hundreds of dollars worth of pet food and other supplies.

Our timing was good because when we arrived ARNO was in the process of trying to buy a new computer to track the rescued animals, but had found they didn't have enough money to get the system they needed. The donations we delivered from Nashville made up the difference.

We first arrived in New Orleans at night and were stunned by the miles and miles of darkened, abandoned neighborhoods that we passed through as we drove through the city to reach our hotel. We stayed downtown, near the convention center, in an area that hadn't flooded, but that had been heavily looted after the storm. There was a lot about New Orleans that was depressing, but parts of the city are recovering and seem relatively normal.

We were impressed and inspired by the animal rescue folks. We met volunteers from as far away as Oregon and Vancouver. We spent out first day helping to move supplies from their old facility--an old nail salon, damaged by the storm and covered by a blue tarp-- to a new shelter they are setting up on the other side of town. ARNO, SAF, and Best Friends have teamed up and are leasing an 18,000 square-foot building that will provide shelter for the animals (150 cats and 105 dogs) and the volunteers--many of whom were camping in the parking lot or sleeping in their cars at the old facility.

The second day we got to move one of the cats to the new shelter in our van which the boys loved, and later in the day we participated in a cat trapping mission. We went looking for a pregnant calico that someone had reported hiding under an abandoned house, but found at least 6 other cats living in the same area. We only managed to get one, but ARNO will go back for the others another day.

Thanks again for your support.

Happy New Year from Gracie Stetar and Family.