princeton – Equipment and supplies are going into place and an expedited 501c3 application has been filed as efforts to open a low-cost spay/neuter clinic in Mercer County keep moving forward.
Commissioner Gene Buckner, who serves on a committee working to bring a low-cost spay/neuter clinic to Mercer County, provided an update Tuesday during a meeting of the Mercer County Commission.
“We’re so close it’s not even funny. All the equipment is being installed and the supplies are there. We have the employees ready to go to work,” Buckner said. “Everything is covered as far as the employment. As soon as we get a certification back from the state of West Virginia and we’re waiting on that. That should happen this week. We’ll be able to open the spay and neuter clinic, but I’m not giving a date because I don’t know how fast the state’s going to move.”
The spay/neuter clinic Furever Fixed, Inc. now has a director.
“We’ve got a director who’s working there today as we speak,” Buckner said. “She’s been there for about two weeks, and I’m telling you right now she’s doing an excellent job there.”
Connies Gillespie, who is managing the new clinic, was at its quarters Tuesday near the Mercer County Animal Shelter.
“Officer manager/director. I don’t know what they really want to call me,” Gillespie said. “But we have a waiting list that is on our webpage, on our Facebook page and it’s also connected to the Humane Society and the Mercer County Animal Shelter. We are sending out applications for people to be placed on the wait list via email, texts and through the standard mail services. So far I have over 500 applications out. I already have over 110 cats and 55 dogs already on the waiting list to be seen. I’ve already got all that ready to go and waiting for them to get everything ready.”
The current plan is to work first on the dogs and cats that people own.
“I want to mainly get the community and surrounding areas taken care of before we bring on some of the shelters and rescue clinics because we don’t want to mix the animals up, domestic ones and any ones in the rescue clinics because of any underlying diseases or anything that can transmit and we want to make sure the community has been taken care of as well,” Gillespie said. “They have been so patient waiting for this. I think that’s just the best thing to make sure the community gets taken care of up front; but, of course, everyone wants to get taken care of.”
“We also have to do it on dog days and cat days because of the preparation of the techs in the back. We can do up to 30 cats a day and up to 12 to 14 dogs a day depending on size,” she said. “That’s the reason why the form asks explicitly what size your animal is and everything so I’ll know how I can fit them in to the schedule. It also depends on whether they are male or female for the procedure the veterinarian does for anesthesia purposes.”
A form for an expedited 501c3 application was mailed late Monday afternoon, Gillespie said. It was mailed with overnight delivery.
“Well, we found out that the initial filing of it was a standard file which the IRS kicked up as a 6 month, 180-day waiting process time,” she said. “I was able to get on the phone the end of last week and talk to an individual in regards to an expedition qualification. She encourage me to go ahead and fill out for the expedition. It could take as minimum as 10 days for getting approved or not, that it would not stop the process where we are now, but it might expedite it; so we took a chance and filled out the paperwork, sent out the supporting documentation. If we don’t get this 501c3, we will not be eligible for any 2025 vouchers, grants or anything through the state of West Virginia or through the United States federal government or the Humane Society.”
Prices for the spaying and neutering have not yet been set, Gillespie said. The clinic needs the 501c3 so pledged contributions can be accepted. The goal is to make the prices as low as possible, and knowing how much money is available through contributions will help set the prices. Work is ongoing while this application is being processed.
“Here at the clinic, we are moving forward with getting everything ready,” Gillespie said. “We are waiting on it, but I’m not letting that stop what we’re doing here. We’re getting the waiting list going. We’re still getting all of the supplies in. We’re getting the ball rolling to where once that goes into place we can open up.”
Volunteers have been donating their time to getting the clinic open.
“We’ve had a lot of donations, people coming in painting, landscaping, helping me with that,” Gillespie said. “A lot of volunteers coming in with the towels and quilting and everything else that we need. We still have our Amazon gift list that’s online, just supplies if anyone wants to go on there and purchase some supplies that are going to be desperately needed once we get open. And that would be cleaning supplies and stuff like that that we’re going to need every month – not just once when we open the door – but once we get rolling. Cleaning supplies. There were a few muzzles that we were wanting to get for the bigger dogs. We want to keep our employees safe as well with handling gloves and stuff like that.”
The spay/neuter clinic’s Facebook page is Furever Fixed, Inc.
The clinic can be contacted and applications to join the waiting list by using the following addresses:
– Email at FureverFixed.Inc@gmail.com
– Text Message at 304-961-6184
– Mail to Furever Fixed, Inc., 1003 Shelter Road, Princeton, WV 24739
Contact Greg Jordan at
gjordan@bdtonline.com
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