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“ARNO: Shelter from the Storm” Slideshow
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Baby Bach and Beethoven shown here shot with a zoom lens when they were still ‘nobody’s dogs.’ In late November ARNO tore up the church floor to bring them to safety. The church was demolished the following week.
Photo by Lise McComiskey.
More than puppies for the holidays…
January 1, 2009
ARNO’s work on the street is aided by more than our stalwart volunteers' efforts. There are many residents, some very young, that we teach and put to work as our ‘eyes’ to watch movement of ‘nobody’s dogs’ when we cannot be there. These kids, and adults, learn what it takes to maintain a pet and at minimum how to be kind to an animal. They learn that ARNO can help them, too, whether with spay/neuter for their pets, or supplying pet food to an elderly person who barely exists on his social security check, or the young rock-throwing kids who are turned into kids who care.
This Christmas one of our volunteers who works on the street prepared little gift bags filled with candy, simple toys, and just items to garner a smile from a child or adult that helped pave our way into neighborhoods that are barely safe for residents, and hardly safe for outsiders. One of the smaller children, Tyler, who does not talk but somehow is understood by his grandmother, was not around when his gift bag was delivered to his house. The gift card said ‘from Santa to Tyler.’
When Tyler’s grandmother spotted the ARNO volunteer later in the day on her ‘supper’ feeding route she called to her and also called out the non-verbal Tyler. “Tyler didn’t understand why you would have a gift for him from Santa. I told Tyler that you were probably one of Santa’s elves. Tyler insisted that is not what you are, and I thought you should see who you remind Tyler of… Go ‘head, Tyler, take the lady in to see who you think she is.” Tyler then grabbed the volunteer’s hand, led her up to Apt. #4, and directly inside the door was a Christmas tree all decorated like any you see in anyone’s home. Tyler then slowly raised his arm and pointed a finger aimed at the top of the tree. Tyler was sure. The ARNO volunteer was no less than an angel. Needless to say this was one of the best Christmas gifts we could ever get.
Please allow us to continue to be ‘angels’ to the people and the homeless animals on the street. They need us to recover more than needing buildings rebuilt… they need us for their hearts to heal. Please consider donating to help us continue our work within the community for the homeless animals. We are making a difference and your donations allow us to continue. Please don’t forget us. A donation check dated in 2008 can be tax deductible for 2008. Consider becoming a ‘sanctuary’ member and donate monthly even a small amount so we know we can count on your support throughout the year. It’s easy to do with a credit card on PayPal, and secure so you don’t have to worry about your privacy or personal information being in the wrong hands.
All Photos by Laura Richard
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
December 11, 2008
Yes, it is snowing in New Orleans... today is the earliest ever recorded snowfall in our city's history. Before today's record-setting snowfall the weather service reports the previous record was set on December 22, 1989. Our last snowfall (just a 'dusting' of giant flakes up to two inches wide!) was nine months before Katrina struck on Dec. 25, 2004.
Snow is just the ticket for making all the ARNO volunteers (and our shelter pets!) feel like the holidays are nearing. We hope this holiday season you remember Animal Rescue New Orleans and the work we continue to accomplish for homeless animals in our region. If you make a tax-deductible donation of $50 or above we will send a card with a photograph of one of our shelter animals (dog, puppy, cat or kitten) that your donation has assisted and tell the recipient that pet's story. We can also send the card to a friend that you want to let know you have remembered them in a special way. Great holiday gift for those who love animals as much as you do.
If you use PayPal to make your tax deductible donation of $50 or above, please put in the comments/notes section whom should receive the card. Include all your contact information so we can call you if we have any questions. We are offering our handmade cards only during the month of December.
Thank you for remembering the 5,000 plus animals that have been through our shelter and now have loving homes. We are hoping you continue to support ARNO so we can continue this important work. Remember, we are all volunteer, so every penny you contribute goes directly to sheltering and medically caring for our shelter pets, as well as assisting those who are indigent with their pet's medical care and maintenance. No gift to ARNO is too small, so please give what you can.
Warmest wishes this holiday season...may love, peace and kindness touch you and yours!
Features
NEW Shelter Hours:
Shelter Open Every Day
Volunteers Only:
9am-8pm
PUBLIC HOURS:
3pm-7pm
If you are interested in adopting a pet, we ask that you contact an adoption counselor at AdoptFromArno@yahoo.com for an adoption application and an appt. to interact with the pet(s) of your choice. No pets are adopted/released until a completed application is approved.
Help ARNO
ARNO is running CRITICALLY low on donations and more specifically, CAT FOOD, please help us feed these animals. We have a few volunteers to go out in the field to feed, but without any food, their help will be seriously hindered. Please donate so we can buy some food.
Audio/Video
Recruitment Flyers
PLEASE CONSIDER FOSTERING AN ANIMAL.
ARNO has an ongoing need for foster homes to provide animals a safe and loving environment until transport, reunion and adoption arrangements can be made.
Learn More >>
Yahoo Volunteer Group
Our Yahoo Group is open to ARNO Volunteers who want to continue to assist ARNO.
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Volunteer Efforts Earn ARNO Beneficiary Status
November 29, 2008
The hard work of the dedicated volunteers and staff at ARNO within our community has been recognized by two prominent local organizations, one a non-profit and the other a famous New Orleans restaurant.
The New Orleans Wine and Food Experience (NOWFE), a non-profit organization, recently presented Animal Rescue New Orleans with a $5,000 grant for their work in the community. The Board NOWFE presented ten local organizations grants totaling $125,000 to support their programs and foundations. Proceeds from the 2008 event benefits the Louisiana Restaurant Association’s ProStart Program, University of New Orleans School of Hotel, Restaurant & Tourism, Chef John Folse Culinary Institute, Delgado Community College Culinary Arts Program, New Orleans Firefighter Firehouse Restoration Fund, Coach Sean Payton’s Play It Forward, Girls First, Cancer Crusaders, Fore!Kids, and Animal Rescue New Orleans.
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Molly with Philip, a kitten rescued in a nearby apartment complex’s parking lot. A good Samaritan picked up Philip and brought him to us. We are so full of kittens we should have said ‘no’ but then I saw the little kitten’s face. It was all over… Philip has already been adopted into a great home.
Photo by Laura RichardAn Escape into Reality
(October 18, 2008) By Molly Hargrove, ARNO Volunteer and Student at St. Mary’s Dominican High School.
"What is the value and importance of community service in our society and tell us what it means to you?"
— Ohio Wesleyan University.As an all-volunteer no-kill shelter with many physical limitations since Gustav, Animal Rescue New Orleans is doing everything they can to maintain their safe haven for abused, neglected, abandoned and stray animals. With little funding, and no paid staff, it seems it would be extremely difficult to run an operation completely with volunteers. But they do it, day in and day out, seven days a week, 12 hours a day. Many of the people that volunteer there on a daily (and nightly) basis are exhausted but they forge on no matter what. To some it may seem a waste of time, rescuing animals when the money could be spent elsewhere. But to those select few who work at ARNO’s shelter, nothing else could begin to compare to the elated feeling when a new home is found for a shelter pet. For me, Animal Rescue New Orleans is the perfect escape from a hectic teenage life, into an even more challenging reality.
I started volunteering at this shelter for community service hours for school, since I needed 40 hours in one weekend. It was close to impossible. I realize now that the volunteer work we were required to do in order to graduate poses a great example of how humans should act — we should be helping others out of the goodness of our heart. I had tried volunteering at different jobs, like a daycare, but none had compared to the thrill that ran through me when I found out that there was actually a shelter that I could volunteer at in New Orleans. (I had previously been told I had to be eighteen to volunteer at other shelters in the city). Animals have always been my first love. As a child I remember sitting at my kiddy table writing out the words ‘cat’ and ‘dog’ when I had just learned to read and write. It took me many tries but eventually I got the two words down perfectly. When I learned that I needed service hours I immediately thought I would try a shelter. Not only would it give me the hours I needed, but it would also give me an edge in my quest to go to LSU School of Veterinary Medicine… Animal Rescue New Orleans provided the perfect environment for me.
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Volunteer starts cleanup in what used to be rehab area near rehab pool with jets. Fencing in rear and fencing between sections totally gone.
Shelter Devastated After Gustav
(October 2, 2008) —By Charlotte Bass-Lily
ARNO echoes the face of the population after Katrina, Gustav and even Ike … resilient. Resilient we may be, but we are taking a deep breath and rolling up our sleeves …a familiar feeling in the Crescent City. This time we are faced with rebuilding after Gustav, certainly not as damaging as Katrina to our area but just as devastating to our no-kill triage shelter.
The photos show what our shelter looked like when the first group of volunteers was able to return to the shelter. Our shelter pets were still safe at their evacuation sites when these photos were taken. There was no power and we had lost a substantial part of our operation… all our outside facilities. Our main building/warehouse sustained almost zero damage, just as it fared in Katrina. But ARNO’s shelter lost much — perimeter fencing in the front and back areas, isolation areas for canines in the rear yard and front enclosure, 24-hour TNR staging area, our rear runs/kennels and turnout area, three out of four of our commercial propane heaters, our fenced-in rehabilitation area in the rear (the rehab pool did survive), our 20x20’ white tent covering the front area, and our 60x20’ tent in the rear. The hurricane force winds also blew out the front and back of our Cat Breezeway, which we can live with until it starts to turn cold. We also lost our storage ability in these areas that were protected from the weather.
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©2008 Laura Richard.
Rescue Three Years Post-Katrina
(August 20, 2008) —By Lise N. McComiskey
People often wonder aloud when they see the words “Animal Rescue” written in gold across the navy blue teeshirts of many of our volunteers who still work in the field, i.e. the streets, nearly three years after Katrina ravaged New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast. Many wonder how animal rescue is still underway or even needed and we often are asked just what our role is in a city that is in recovery in so many ways and yet stagnates in so many others. This story answers what to us is the obvious—whether there is a need for animal rescue. The “answers” in this story are called Destiny and Miracle. On Monday, May 12, 2008, along with several other messages left on the Animal Rescue New Orleans voice-mail was a plea for help from a woman named Diana. It was not clear from the message just who Diana was or how she fit into this but she was calling because she was hearing from her second floor a disturbing sound... the sound of a kitten in distress. So how many people does it take to help a kitten in distress? Well, when the kitten is sealed up in the wall of an empty house, a house left vacant by owners relocated to Houston following Katrina, it just might take a few caring hearts to save this kitten.
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Photo by Robin Siegel
The Invisible Volunteers Known as Stealth
(August 20, 2008) By Robin Siegel, Stealth Volunteer
Editor's Note: As part of the events marking the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Animal Rescue New Orleans is presenting an award to (and receiving an award from) the Stealth Volunteers. Okay, it sounds like a “love fest” between ARNO and Stealth, and we admit it is. Most people have never heard of Stealth — they prefer to remain hidden from the limelight — but to those they have reunited, they are the most important group in the world. ARNO asked Robin Siegel, a Stealther in Silver Spring, Maryland, to write this series of stories to let everyone know of the service they have performed and continue to perform for the lost pets of Katrina. We thought since they will be “revealed” at the Memorial Ceremonies on the third anniversary of Katrina, you should know exactly who these wonderful people are.
Stealth Volunteers, a group of hundreds of online researchers, were responsible for locating the owners of some 1000 cats, dogs, and other pets that were evacuated from south Louisiana and Mississippi after Katrina. A thousand times, one of us — or a small team of two or three of us — were rewarded in our round-the-clock efforts with the words “OMG! That's my dog!” Or “That's my cat! Where did you find her?” And “We lost everything in the storm; all we wanted back was our pets.”
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Josh takes a break and makes friends with one of ARNO�s shelter pets, Mimi the Queen of the shelter.
A “Feel Good” Diversion
(August 20, 2008) By Allison Winfield Kaloo
My 17-year-old son and I decided on NOLA for our annual "Mom & Josh's Great Adventure." The trip would mark going into his senior year of high school and prove to be a landmark excursion. Veteran visitors to ‘the crescent city’ are intimately familiar with its magic, but we'd never had the pleasure. In the aftermath of the storm, I thought it would be all the more significant to find out for ourselves how such a legendary destination recaptures its vitality, recoups its vigor and restores its soul. I was unprepared for what we found and the effect it would have on us.
For me, Katrina had galvanized an image of New Orleans as this stranded, isolated place.
On the contrary, its survival has drawn from the historical confluence of international forces and its persistent diversity. Its culture is a reflection of France and Spain, but also of Haiti and Senegal, Cuba and even Congo. You can hear it in the music, see it in the art and architecture, taste it in the cuisine and feel it in the hospitality — thick like their air in August. New Orleans natives and transplants alike appear to share certain core beliefs and values. Beyond "letting the good times roll," they seem to celebrate NOLA as a fundamental global city because of these vibrant links and the value they place in their human (and pet) connections.
Recent Features
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“Biloxi Buddy” is a true survivor
(7/15/08) — forward by Merrick “Rick” Morton, Buddy’s Dad; article by Lise N. McComiskey
He is a rescue that was not supposed to live. If you saw him now you would never know he is the same dog that was rescued from the side of the road in Mississippi.
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High Fashion Arrives at ARNO
(7/15/08) - by Charlotte Bass-Lilly
It wasn’t our celebrated presence in the city, nor our donors nationwide, who brought ARNO to the attention of “W” magazine. It was our wonderful daily newspaper, the Times-Picayune...
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Can you spare a little time?
Updated 8/20/08 ARNO Volunteer
We need volunteers who can help us at the shelter. We are very short of help and need people who can help us with animal care.
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Rebuilders stumble on old friend
(7/15/08)
Family reunited with pet cat lost during Katrina.
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Vagabonds Give Up Street Life
(7/15/08) Editor's Note
The beginning of the story of two dogs, Boy and Rocca, who roamed the streets of New Orleans.
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Yes, They Still Need Us
by ARNO Staff
The animals of New Orleans still need our help.