More than 7,858 were animals spayed/neutered in Jefferson County with the assistance of Olympic Mountain Pet Pals since the inception of its program in 2001. This statistic was announced at the group’s annual meeting in February.
“When OMPP was founded in 2001, the goal was to help low-income pet owners and to make Jefferson County a community with no homeless dogs and cats and to make our local shelter a no-kill facility,” explains Pam Kolacy, president of OMPP.
In 2019, the annual cost of the spay/neuter program topped $39,000. The organization’s primary source of funding comes from individual donations.
OMPP also provides testing and certification for therapy dogs for two outreach programs, Read to Rover and Pets to People. In 2019, 40 human and dog teams participated in these programs. Read to Rover teams serve students in Chimacum Primary, Salish Coast and Quilcene school districts and the Jefferson County library. Pets to People teams visit seniors at Life Care, Avamere and Victoria Place.
“We are an all-volunteer organization; we have no paid staff. It takes a community committed to the well-being of their pets, and it takes a lot of money to do what we do. We are always in need of donations of time and money to continue our mission,” Kolacy remarked as she closed the 2019 annual meeting of Olympic Mountain Pet Pals.
Patricia Swain
Port Townsend
