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NEW ORLEANS, LA (July 11, 2006) - NASCAR Nextel Cup Series driver of the
#12 Alltel Dodge, Ryan Newman, and his wife Krissie have been named spokespeople
for the National Spay/Neuter Response Team (NSNRT). Their first project
for the initiative was welcoming the Big Fix Rig into New Orleans,
Louisiana.
Krissie Newman traveled to New Orleans with Ryan Newman Foundation Executive
Director Rosalie De Fini on July 11 to christen the Big Fix Rig, a new 53-foot
mobile spay/neuter clinic capable of performing 120 cat sterilization surgeries
per day as part of the effort to reduce pet overpopulation nationwide. The
mobile clinic was funded by grants from the PETCO Foundation and the Leonard X.
Bosack & Bette M. Kruger Charitable Foundation. Welcoming the Big Fix Rig
into Louisiana kicks off a major spay/neuter program in the Gulf Coast.
Leading animal welfare organizations—the ASPCA, PetSmart Charities, the
Humane Society of the United States, International Fund for Animal Welfare, and
United Animal Nations—have joined in an effort to fund $3.2 million in support
of spay/neuter programs in the hurricane affected areas of Mississippi and
Louisiana. Last year’s Hurricane Katrina exposed the public to a growing
pet overpopulation problem in the Gulf Coast, with nearly 80 percent of all pets
in the region unaltered. Partnering with nonprofit organizations the Humane
Alliance’s National Spay/Neuter Response Team, Spay Louisiana, Mississippi SPAN,
and Humane Society of South Mississippi, the project will operate a spay/neuter
voucher program, two permanent high-volume spay/neuter clinics and the Big Fix
Rig to provide as many as 20,000 pet sterilization surgeries in the first
year.
Ryan Newman explains, “Krissie and I are proud to have been asked to be the
spokespeople for the National Spay/Neuter Response Team. Across the
nation, county animal shelters have to put dogs and cats to death because there
aren’t enough homes for all of the puppies and kittens being born each
year. The only statistically proven way to stop the animal overpopulation
epidemic is by spaying and neutering pets. We have to prevent unwanted
breeding to save lives.”
The National Spay/Neuter Response Team is an initiative of the Humane
Alliance, which is a nonprofit public, low-cost spay/neuter clinic in Asheville,
North Carolina. Humane Alliance operates a high-volume spay/neuter clinic
in Asheville that has sterilized 150,000 animals since its inception 12 years
ago and reduced the euthanasia rate in their community by an astounding 82
percent. Through their NSNRT initiative, they have already helped groups across
the country begin operations for 12 model clinics in just one year.
According to Quita Mazzina, director of Humane Alliance, “In this country we
spend one billion dollars annually to pick up, house, and destroy homeless
animals. If only five percent of that total were allocated to spay/neuter
programs, we could open 250 public, low-cost spay/neuter clinics across the
country and sterilize more than four million animals each year. Instead of
our county tax dollars being used to kill animals, we could be using those funds
to prevent unwanted litters and therefore prevent the needless deaths of
homeless animals.”
Working much like a NASCAR pit crew, the National Spay/Neuter Response team
sends in groups of trained vets and techs around the country to help nonprofit
organizations open spay/neuter clinics using the Humane Alliance model. The
nonprofit organization first spends a week with their entire staff in Asheville
at the Humane Alliance clinic, and then the Asheville staff comes back with them
to their hometown for two weeks to help them open their clinic.
One clinic that is slated to open in 2007 is the Ryan Newman Foundation
Spay/Neuter Clinic at the Humane Society of Catawba County’s multipurpose animal
welfare facility that is being constructed this year. The Ryan Newman
Foundation pledged a donation of $400,000 to build the clinic, which will serve
eight counties in the heart of NASCAR country in North Carolina.
Krissie Newman says, “It was a very special opportunity for me to return to
the New Orleans area to kick off this spay/neuter clinic and do something
positive for the people who were hit so hard by Hurricane Katrina. The
Ryan Newman Foundation gave $19,000 in grants to animal rescue groups in
Louisiana and Mississippi who were part of the Katrina rescue efforts. We
came down for a week last September with a truckload of pet and people supplies
and another truckload of donated Purina pet food to distribute to families who
stayed through Hurricane Katrina because they couldn’t take their pets to
emergency shelters. It was a humbling experience to drive through the
devastated areas distributing supplies. We also brought back a bus full of
surrendered Katrina dogs that were adopted by families in the Charlotte
area.
“This trip not only gave us the opportunity to kick off this wonderful
low-cost spay/neuter program, but it also allowed us to visit the Humane Society
of South Mississippi where we camped and volunteered after Hurricane
Katrina. At the time, they were in the process of building an animal
shelter and a spay/neuter clinic with help from the Humane Alliance’s National
Spay/Neuter Response Team. It was great to tour the new facility now that it is
finished, although they still need donations because a lot of the people who
pledged money to their capital campaign prior to Katrina had to pull their
pledges due to loss of their homes or jobs because of the hurricane.”
While in the Gulf Coast for the Big Fix Rig kick-off, Krissie Newman and
Rosalie De Fini took time to visit the Humane Society of South Mississippi and
St. Francis Animal Sanctuary. Both organizations received a grant from the
Ryan Newman Foundation for Hurricane Katrina Pet Rescue.
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