About Us
Our Story
We began as a community “grass roots” effort to help the animals of the Long Beach Peninsula. Dawn Gregory formed the Pet Protectors, a small non-profit organization. Another small group began under the name of the Humane Society.
The Pet Protectors and the Humane Society joined forces under the name Humane Society resulting in today’s South Pacific County Humane Society.
The City of Long Beach granted us an extended lease for the land that holds the animal shelter with a yearly rent of $1.
Funding for the Humane Society came from a $50,000 grant, a fundraising mailer raising $5,000 to $6,000, a classic car raffle and $10,000 from a Will.
A ground breaking ceremony took place on October 4, 1996 and construction began on October 7, 1996. Major contributors were; Steve Langer, Steve Newell, Milt Wadler, Maria Patten, Krissy Lindsey, Billie Sacks and Doris Holcomb. Mr. Phil Olsen of the Longview Humane Society was a vital consultant in the construction phase of the shelter.
The Humane Society was constructed with the help / donations of local businesses. Here is a brief listing: Don Anderson of Peninsula Plumbing, Gary Miller of Universal Services, Ford Electric, Tony Mourikas, Jeff Dorr and Miller Paints.
We would also like to acknowledge those unnamed volunteers, business and contributors who are not listed here. These gifts of time, goods and/or services have allowed us to reach out to the community and better serve our animals in need and we thank you.
And now, 11 years later…
We have fewer than two full-time employees. In fact, our staff is so dedicated that six of them share a three-quarters time position, working inconvenient shifts to make sure the cats and dogs receive proper medical care, exercise and feedings. The rest of our operation is completely volunteer-driven.
Even though we run as tight a ship as is possible, it still costs roughly $10,000 per month to operate our facility. We have the typical overhead of utilities and payroll, of course, and our consumables of medicines, food and litter are rather remarkable. That’s an average of about $150 for each pet that ?nds a new home through our efforts.
Despite incredible generosity on the part of our local vets, we average monthly veterinary bills of $3-4,000 per month.
Our volunteers do something on the order of a dozen loads of laundry per day, walk, play with and clean up after 50-ish animals, greet the public, answer questions, produce fundraisers and events, foster special-needs animals, intervene in cases of cruelty and neglect, increase awareness of pet issues in our community, build fences, write grants, create and send mailings, write for the newspaper, take photos of animals, post adoptable pets on a national website, keep our own website active, and so much more.
Each of us is gratified to participate in this effort. Won’t you join us?
