The Cache Creek Animal Rescue in New Lenox is looking for homes for rescue animals with the help of “hometown heroes.”
A recent Cache Creek “Homes and Heroes” project partnered homeless dogs and cats with about a dozen local military veterans and personnel from the New Lenox Fire Protection District and New Lenox Police Department in a photo shoot. The photos and accompanying biographies were posted on Facebook.
Cache Creek Animal Rescue marketing coordinator Anna Pec, 27, said the point of the “Homes and Heroes” project is to honor those who serve while featuring some of the shelter’s homeless animals.
“We thought it was important to highlight their service in their community,” Pec said of the heroes. “I think in some ways that sometimes gets lost.”
If the presence of “heroes” can help animals find their forever homes, so much the better.
Pec said the need is great. She said Cache Creek Animal Rescue director Donna Hawk regularly brings about 30 to 50 animals from the organization’s hub location in downstate Anna to be adopted into good homes in the Lincoln-Way area and beyond.
She said the Cache Creek shelter, with an adoption center at 1003 Star Lane in New Lenox, takes animals from shelters where they would be euthanized if homes weren’t found for them within a specific time period.
“The (Cache Creek) shelter is important because we get most of our animals from kill shelters,” Pec said. “So if we didn’t exist, these animals — most of them — would not survive. There is a very small time frame in order to be adopted out.”
The animals come from a variety of situations, including closed puppy mills and southern Illinois, where some shelters cannot keep the animals “potentially as long as we can,” Pec said.
That means some animals may be sick or injured, but Pec said Hawk does not turn away animals, as some shelters do, just because they will need costly medical attention.
“Cache Creek Animal Shelter keeps the animals until they are adopted even though they are not always the most adoptable animals,” Pec said.
“I think, most importantly, what Donna tries to bring home in regards to the shelter is that she doesn’t take just the best-looking, healthiest animals that are at that kill shelter. She will take heartworm-positive dogs, she will take a senior cat or a senior dog, or a dog with a disability or a dog that does have health issues,” Pec said. “We do try our best to give those animals a chance as well.”
That kind of care not only costs money but also requires many hours of work.
The community can really be of help, Pec said. Those who cannot adopt a pet can volunteer at the shelter and at shelter events.
Pec said one of the greatest needs is for volunteers to drive animals to events at local businesses such as Petco and PetSmart, where Cache Creek animals are featured on a regular basis.
Pec said children as young as 12 can volunteer to walk dogs at the shelter and those younger can walk dogs if accompanied by an adult. High school students can earn community service hours through volunteer work at the shelter and at shelter events. The shelter welcomes money donations and donations of food and items for the animals and necessities for the shelter. Helping from home is as easy as visiting www.Amazon.com and accessing the shelter’s “Wish List,” among other online activities, Pec said.
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Cache Creek Animal Shelter is open to any number of ways to help out. Kelli Svancarek, a New Lenox photographer and owner of Silver Castle Studio, Inc., found a creative way to help Cache Creek Animal Shelter, donating her photography services for the “Homes and Heroes” project.
Pec said each photo and the biographies of both the heroes and the animals looking for forever homes can be found on Facebook at https://facebook.com/cachecreekanimalrescue.
Ginger Brashinger is a freelance columnist for the Daily Southtown.