spearheading effort
to aid county
Real estate broker
spearheading effort
to aid county’s SPCA
By gloria stravelli
Staff Writer
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals volunteer Blanche Franks (l) decided to enlist the help of Sue Ashmore Montanti and other colleagues in raising funds to support homeless pets such as Gus, a shepherd mix, and Andy, a mini-pinscher puppy.
Encouraging businesses to help homeless animals seems a natural connection to licensed real estate broker Blanche Franks.
"I thought, here I am finding homes for people. I sell real estate and I’ve done it for 26 years," explained Franks, who is a volunteer for the SPCA of Monmouth County.
"Why not get real estate companies to donate a portion of their sales toward finding homes for animals," mused the Interlaken resident. "It seemed like a natural match."
Aware that the Eatontown shelter — which is wholly dependent on donations and grants — was facing tough financial times, Franks, who is with the Oakhurst office of Weichert, Realtors, decided to reach out to colleagues, and at the top of the list was Larry Vecchio, owner of Better Homes, New Jersey VRI.
Vecchio agreed to donate $40 for each home sold through his Keyport office during the month of February.
Susan Ashmore-Montanti, sales executive in the Keyport office, joined in, offering to donate $40 from each home she sells for the entire year.
What’s more, two days after she visited the shelter, Ashmore-Montanti returned and adopted a homeless dog and cat.
Continuing the home-finding theme, Franks took the idea to the owner of First Interstate Financial of Shrewsbury. The mortgage company signed on as the SPCA sponsor for March, agreeing to donate a portion of the proceeds from each mortgage financed.
Franks is aiming to find a business sponsor for each of the remaining months of the year and is planning to branch out to other types of businesses in an effort to raise funds for the shelter and encourage adoption of homeless animals sheltered there.
According to SPCA Executive Director Ursula Goetz, the nonprofit shelter had a $300,000 shortfall in 2002, due in part to the economic slowdown.
Donations to the shelter last year declined 10 percent from 2001, while expenses rose 19 percent during the same period due to rising costs for insurance, utilities, benefits and supplies, she explained.
The cost of running the shelter, which houses more than 3,400 animals each year, is $650,000 annually, Goetz said.
"In order not to lose money, we need to raise an extra $30,000 a month," she said.
One of the major problems faced by the shelter, which houses an average of 200 homeless animals each day, she explained, is the misconception that the shelter receives funds from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), which is a national organization with branches across the country.
"We don’t get any funding from them; we’re not affiliated with each other," she said.
"People just don’t realize there is no national organization that sends us funding and there are no state funds for an organization like ours," she said. "All of our money comes from donations and grants we apply for and from some modest service fees, but they don’t make up our expenses."
According to Goetz, while the shelter serves county residents, including some who find themselves in dire straits, it does not currently receive funding or reimbursement from the freeholders.
"If a social worker calls and says they have a client who is going into a nursing home and there is no one to take care of their pet, when that animal comes into our shelter, there is no fee we can collect for the care of that animal until we find a home for it," Goetz explained.
"When people are evicted and they don’t know where to go, they arrive with all their household goods and kids in the car and tell us they’re moving in with family and can’t pay a fee or make a donation, what am I to tell them?" she asked.
"And this happens over and over again," Goetz continued. "We’ve had a few cases of battered women who go to a shelter and can’t take pets with them, so they end up here. There was a fire in Keyport that destroyed a home, and the owner had three dogs that we’ve had here for a month. Under those circumstances how is he going to pay? He just lost everything. These are the kind of problems we face."
Last year, the SPCA took in more than 3,400 animals and facilitated the adoption of more than 2,000 of these.
The shelter refuses to euthanize animals that are adoptable, a policy "that has become very costly for us," Goetz acknowledged.
While the SPCA has the support of more than 200 volunteers who help with care of the animals sheltered, public outreach, publicity and fund-raising efforts, Goetz pointed out that the facility needs full-time staff .
"Volunteers help make our service excellent, but you cannot run an organization that takes care of more than 3,400 animals a year, including transporting injured animals to wildlife rehabilitators, with volunteers. You have to have a core staff that comes in every day, 365 days per year," she said.
"The average census in the shelter is about 200 animals and between 40-60 animals in foster homes," Goetz added.
To help stem animal overpopulation, a rising problem, the shelter runs a low-cost spray/neuter clinic, she said.
"We haven’t gotten help from the Legislature in state funding," she said. "There are hundreds of feral and stray cats. It’s a problem in this community and in the state, but most towns don’t include cats under their animal control contract and, with a few exceptions, don’t collect license fees for cats. In the past, the county has given us $15,000 to support our work. Ocean County has two municipal shelters, but here in Monmouth County, we can’t get funding."
Goetz suggested, pointedly, "The freeholders should consider opening a municipal shelter so social workers could call the municipal shelter when people are evicted, and needy people who can’t pay a dime could go to the municipal shelter and leave their animals there."
On the drawing board are upgrades and expansion plans that include enclosing existing dog runs, installing new runs and including a small addition to provide meeting and training space at the shelter, which is located on Wall Street in Eatontown.
Grandfathered in a residential zone, the shelter’s plans were approved by the Eatontown Zoning Board, but a new corporate neighbor, Algen Design, has objected to the runs — in place since 1945 — and has filed an appeal of the decision in State Superior Court in Freehold, Goetz said.
"We want to upgrade our facility. The kennel was built in 1960," Goetz said, adding that a clinic was added in 1995 but there has not been sufficient funding to improve the kennels.
"We would like to modernize," she said, estimating that the cost of the renovation would be $600,000 to $700,000.
Businesses interested in sponsoring the SPCA for any month from April through December can contact Franks at her office, (742) 531-1600, ext. 126, or evenings at (732) 531-2925.