March 2007 Vol. 26. No. 3

Published by the Humboldt Senior Resource Center in Eureka, California. HSRC is a non-profit community-based organization offering services for senior citizens, multi-generational families and caregivers.

Area Agency public hearings set March 8 and March 12
Senior tax assistance
'Tis the season - Freeman Trust helps pay for spaying and neutering
Owned by our pets
Lunches at home, rides to events, are available
Activities at the Humboldt Senior Resource Center in March

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Tis the season - Freeman Trust helps pay for spaying and neutering
by Barbara Clark

This is the season for cats to fall in love and find mates. Well, that is if Carole Beaton doesn't find them first. She's a one-woman missionary to help low-income seniors get all of the stray cats in a neighborhood get fixed.

Forming Bless the Beasts ten years ago, Beaton goes to the places where seniors live, like Jerry Leighton's mobile home park in south Eureka. She'll gather up all the strays like those he feeds on his front porch, take them to participating vets and bring them back the same day, dopey and recovering from anesthetic - and never to give birth to a new litter of unwanted animals.

"All the animal groups are doing this," Beaton said modestly of her use of the new voucher program that helps pay for low-income people to have animals spayed or neutered. She does it a little differently. "I go to where the seniors and the stray cats are, to the places where people may not have transportation to take the animals to the vets." On a cold windy Feburary day, Beaton was taking 11 cats to Dr. Anderson in Fortuna and picking them up to return them to the trailer park.

Leighton said that the group of stray cats on the front porch grows when seniors move out of the park and leave their cats behind. "I don't know how they can do that," he said, "but I feed them."

Beaton said that the new trust fund established by the Freeman Trust at Humboldt Area Foundation is a big help for the whole community in spaying and neutering all animals. Bless the Beasts received an additional grant that pays the co-pay for very low income people and for feral colonies of cats.

Beaton is also launching a new program in which seniors will be able to pick up dog and cat food when they pick up their commondities at distribution sites. With donations of food from Petco and participation of the Humboldt Senior Resource Center, people will be able to pick up food on March 15 beginning at 8:30 a.m. In the future, animal food will be delivered to seniors who need it on the home-delivered meal routes.

Freeman Trust
Lisa McCombs, executive assistant of HAF, wrote that the Freeman Fund was established by May Lizzie Freeman of Korbel who died in 2005 and her husband Ernest. The couple founded the Freeman Insurance Agency. May helped start the local chapter of the Humane Society and was a longtime champion of animal protection. The Freemans created a fund at HAF to reduce the number of unwanted dogs and cats through a spay and neuter program. As of June 30, 2006, the fund's balance was $4,795,824.

HAF will reimburse participating veterinarians 80 percent of allowed spay and neuter charges, upon receipt of a completed voucher. Vouchers are available from participating animal welfare groups, the Humboldt County Sheriff's Animal Shelter and veterinarians.

Participating animal welfare groups include: Bless the Beasts, BONES, Companion Animal Foundation, Friends for Life, Humane Society of the Redwoods, Humboldt Spay/Neuter Network, Humboldt Dog Obedience, Miranda's Rescue, PAWS and the Sequoia Humane Society. Participating veterinarians include Animal Health and Surgery Center, Animal Medical Center Fortuna, Arcata Animal Hospital, Cutten Animal Health Center, Eureka Veterinary Hospital, Ferndale Veterinary, Fortuna Veterinary Clinic, Garberville-Redway Veterinary Group, Myrtle Avenue Veterinary Hospital, Redwood Animal Hospital, and Sunny Brae Animal Clinic.

Barbara Clark is editor of Senior News.