Kerrie Bulski of One Love Animal Rescue performs within the park with a rescue pup.
Meet the tireless leaders behind 4 of Savannah’s largest animal rescues
Written by RACHEL MCDERMOTT
Photography by ANGELA HOPPER
Sean Griffin
Executive Director, Humane Society for Greater Savannah (HSGS)
What began as guide work in 2009 grew into one thing far more severe for Griffin.
“There is nothing quite like seeing the look on someone’s face when they leave our Adoption Center with their new family member,” Griffin says. “Since I started, over 30,000 animals have been adopted from here, and it never gets old.”
Founded in 1962, HSGS is the state’s largest no-kill shelter exterior of Atlanta, working with 14,000 animals a yr in want of adoption and veterinary care. In addition, the nonprofit has a pet meals pantry, canine coaching courses, Trap, Neuter, Vaccinate, Return (TNVR) packages and a thrift store.
“Community impact and change happen at the intersection of resources, will and knowledge,” he says. “We have been fortunate to have such tremendous support from our community, but there is still so much work in our area that needs to be done. We have the knowledge and will to keep pushing forward, but we need resources to keep impacting progress in our region.”
HSGS continues to help native collaborative rescue efforts like Chatham 90, Chatham County’s alliance of animal shelters, rescues, veterinarians and volunteers working to attach pets and their individuals with the assets they want. Recently, HSGS obtained a grant from Best Friends Animal Society to mentor and help 25 shelters in Georgia and South Carolina to assist them attain no-kill standing.
Lisa Scarbrough
Director and Founder, Coastal Pet Rescue
Shortly after Scarborough graduated faculty, animals saved displaying up at her home. On her twenty third birthday, the ink dried on the paperwork to start out Coastal Pet Rescue. Twenty years later, she has a bachelor’s diploma in humane management from Duquesne University and focuses on educating the following technology on animal welfare.
“You moved in that house and there were six cats when you moved in. They were not yours,” she describes a well-recognized state of affairs for a lot of Savannahians. “But if you work with your neighbors to get them spayed or neutered, those six cats won’t become 60.”
Coastal Pet Rescue additionally ceaselessly works with house owners surrendering because of relations passing or going into assisted residing. To do that work, Coastal wants financial donations for help.
“We spend between $1,000 to 2,000 a week, sometimes more, depending on special needs,” Scarbrough says. And we’d like volunteers on the shelter and foster properties as a result of the extra individuals now we have serving to, the extra animals we can assist.”
Karrie Bulski
Co-founder and Executive Director, One Love Animal Rescue
Bulski grew up surrounded by animals and saving flies from spiders on a farm in Michigan.
“Rescue is a calling, not a choice,” she says. “When you have the ability to help, you should.”
One Love Animal Rescue began in 2013 because the adoption program for Chatham County Animal Services following Bulski’s expertise of ready hours to undertake a canine. An all-volunteer and all-foster community, One Love is in want of short-term and long-term fosters. Bulski acknowledges fosters get hooked up.
“But when we introduce our foster pets to potential adopters and realize that many families are longing to love and save an animal in need, we then feel comfortable letting them move on,” she says. “Many of the families stay in touch and life-long friendships form.”
In 2019, One Love launched Operation Pet Solutions (OPS), an organizing effort to maintain pets of their properties and cut back the variety of pets surrendered by stopping undesirable litters, providing free and discounted companies and provides starting from spays and neuters, pet meals and fence restore. In addition to native partnerships, One Love’s bus transports 50 to 75 animals to rescue teams on the East Coast and to the Midwest — locations the place overpopulation is much less — and doubles the variety of lives saved.
Jennifer Taylor
Director and Co-founder, Renegade Paws Rescue
Taylor is able to bounce in to assist to do what is required. It began along with her first foster puppy named Pablo.
“I was like, this feels like something that I can do, I can feel good about and feel like I am making a difference in the world,” she remembers.
Known because the “pittie” (quick for pitbull) and “big dog” rescue in Savannah, Renegade was based in 2019 to be an inclusive area for dogs and other people. Fundraising efforts like Wag-o-Ween, the favored costume celebration each October, help take care of Renegade’s 600-plus animals ready for adoption.
From crawling beneath a home to retrieve puppies to helping in hoarding conditions, Taylor and the staff are true renegades. “It’s about the animals, but it’s also about the people,” Taylor says. “It’s about the family that we’ve made up. If you can come here, feel it, see it, it will change your life. The animals led us here. They’re the glue that holds it together. But they made more of an impact on us than we’ll ever make on them.”
RACHEL MCDERMOTT is a inventive primarily based in Savannah and holds a Master of Arts in Museum and Exhibition Studies from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a Bachelor of Arts from the College of Charleston. She is the director of social media on the Savannah College of Art and Design and volunteers at Coastal Pet Rescue.
