BRIDGEWATER TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- Workers at a shelter in our area are on a mission to make the animals stay cozier and quieter while they are there, but in order to do it, they need the public's help.
Most people who work at an animal shelter don't do it for the money. It's a labor of love.
The workers behind True Friends Animal Welfare Center near Montrose are passionate about their furry residents and their accommodations.
The building in the back of the main shelter was built in the 1980s. When True Friends took it over in 2011, it was in very bad shape.
"It was filled with mold. it would flood every time it rained. The kennels were badly damaged. We had to bungee cord them just to keep them closed," recalled shelter director Dory Browning.
Since then, Browning and her team have been slowly fixing it up. They just put in 20 new kennels and a cat quarantine room, which will help save more lives.
"We take all of the strays from the counties. We take from Susquehanna, Lackawanna, Wyoming. We pull a lot from high-kill shelters in New York and New Jersey," said shelter worker Marci Zeiler.
Workers said it was really important when they remodeled to have different styles of kennels for the dogs, especially those with different personalities.
"We have one style of kennel down on the floor. It's a little bit busier. In here, we have the barred kennels. Some of them do better in here. Very, very quiet on this side. Then we have the glass kennels over there, kind of more of a room feeling than a kennel feeling," Zeiler explained.
Saving more lives comes at a cost. Vet bills topped $5,000 last month and with the shelter project, they're financially strapped.
"We used up our savings to finish these kennels. The old ones were so in disrepair that we had no choice to do that, so now we just need to raise the money to keep our doors open," Browning said.
For true friends to continue its mission of helping animals, they are asking for little help from you.
"We have 16,000 people that follow us on Facebook. If everyone would have donated $1, that would have been $16,000. That would have covered more than half of this project," Zeiler said.
These animals can't ask for help themselves; workers here are their voices.
"This building has become the heart and soul of our shelter and we are able to save a lot more lives because we have these kennels," Browning added.
If you would like to donate to True Friends, click here.