'Freezing' Shelter Heats Up with Boiler Donation

December 16, 2008 | By Amy Lieberman

The SPCA of Cattaraugus County did not win last year's million-dollar makeover contest, but still received $8,000 from Zootoo. It put the money toward a much-needed new boiler. (Pet Pulse Photo Courtesy of the SPCA of Cattaraugus County)

OLEAN, N.Y. -- Baby, it's cold outside, so step inside the SPCA of Cattaraugus County -- it now has extra heat to go around.

The shelter recently received a new $16,000 boiler, the result of an unprecedented Zootoo.com donation of $8,000, which was matched by community donations.

The gift has made more than a few degrees of a difference for the no-kill shelter, officers say.

"This has taken a huge, huge burden off of our shoulders," said Kelly Chaffee, president of the SPCA of Cattaraugus County. "We love our animals so much and obviously it gets really cold up here. We are doing everything we can to make sure they are roasty-toasty and warm."

The SPCA of Cattaraugus County, located just shy of two hours south of Buffalo, N.Y., entered Zootoo's shelter makeover contest last year.

The shelter's efforts to garner publicity and support eventually fell short, as it placed 12th in the top 20 list of makeover finalists. The $1 million prize wound up going to the Stray Rescue of St. Louis.

Yet though the contest came and went, the shelter's needs remained, as Richard Thompson, Zootoo's founder, noted when he visited the facility last spring during the nationwide makeover tour.

"Richard came here and I said, 'I gotta show you something.' We looked at the boiler, which was really on its last leg, and he said, 'This is awful.' I said, 'I know it is, I know,' " Chaffee said.

Replacing the boiler was a costly endeavor, and shelter workers worried the animals would face notoriously frigid upstate New York winters with their fur coats as their sole source of insulation.

It was a concern that kept an SPCA board member, John Skadowsli, up on frigid winter nights.

"The last couple of years, when it is cold, I will be nestled in my bed and always wind up thinking about how I hope it was warm enough for these guys out there," he said of the

Thompson also found himself "so personally connected" to the shelter and the community that he proposed a deal: if the SPCA could come up with 50 percent of the needed funds, he would pick up the other half of the bill.

The community sprang into action, Skadowsli says, and within four months, outside donations helped the shelter reach the critical $8,000 mark.

"I e-mailed Zootoo and said, 'Guess what? We have the money!' " she said.

Zootoo also found the cash to spare, and had the new boiler system installed three weeks ago.

"Just as a human being, I could not let those animals go through the winter without heat," Thompson said. "I simply kept my promise to them."

It has been challenging for the SPCA of Cattaraugus County to make ends meet, Chaffee says, given its no-kill policy, a rarity for the region. The shelter's daily intake is also high, partially because it draws in strays from surrounding communities.

All in all, it costs $1,000 a day to keep the facility afloat, Chaffee says, noting that they rely almost entirely on donations from the public.

But despite Olean's meager 15,000 population, Thompson says he wasn't surprised at how quickly the SPCA reached its $8,000 goal.

"You see what communities challenged with handling needy animals can do," Thompson said of the SPCA's success in fundraising. "All communities could do this. They just need to know when, where and how to achieve their goals, and to work on a project-by-project basis."

The boiler mission is the only such project Thompson took on following the makeover contest. The shelter is now trying to get additional bones thrown its way from this year's million dollar makeover contest, in which it is a participant.

Nonprofit shelters across the country can register on Zootoo.com to vie for points, which will determine the 20 finalists in mid-March. A Zootoo team will then tour the facilities, some of which may receive similar "Secret Santa" donations, Thompson says, before the site's users will determine the million-dollar winner.

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Editorial Disclosure: Zootoo.com is the parent company of Pet Pulse.