News: Sakata Supports Plants for Paws

Over $5,700 was raised in less than three hours on a sunny afternoon in April 2017 in Salinas at the 3rd Annual Plants for Paws Fundraiser benefiting the local animal shelter and animal services – doubling last year’s fundraising efforts.

Sakata Seed America was a huge sponsor of the event, donating a large amount of plant material from their California Spring Trials display, which ended on Friday.

Cindy Burnham, the shelter manager, was elated about the outcome and very grateful to Sakata for the generous donation of plant material. In addition, Sakata’s Jamie Kitz was in attendance to help man the event and answer any questions customers had about the flowers up for sale.  “It was a fun event,” Jamie stated, “The community poured out in support, and it was a kick answering their questions, putting flower ideas together for them and hearing them ooh and aah at the plant material. And who is not in a good mood at a fundraising event surrounded by flowers?”

Fellow contributor, ColorSpot’s Adalice and Sakata’s Jamie help out at the event

Overall, two moving vans, five SUVs and a truck carried plant material away on Friday, and close to $6,000 was raised the next day in sales. So what’s all of this money going toward?  “This event will go towards our Community Cats Program or Shelter-Neuter-Return. We had a a start up grant from the ASPCA that we have exhausted so we need to raise some money until another grant is received, which may not be until next fiscal year,” explains Cindy.

“Basically, when healthy ferals come in to the shelter, they are fixed, eartipped, microchipped, vaccinated and then released by volunteers to the location they came.  Over the years, we have continued to house and euthanize feral cats and have made no dent in the cat numbers in Salinas.  As more and more shelters and municipalities are moving towards a SNR program, we decided to try it.  It’s been a year for our program and we’ve sent about 30% of our feral cats through the program.  People that didn’t want to see the cats euthanized but couldn’t afford to spay or neuter are now able to bring the cats to us.  It’s very nice to have a non-lethal option for the cats.”

The Plants for Paws fundraiser is a prime example of Sakata’s efforts to support local communities and better the world around us. Sakata is proud to give back to great organizations such as the City of Salinas Animal Services through our Charitable Giving Program.

Busy at the show!

To learn more about City of Salinas Animal Services or how you can help, please visithttps://www.ci.salinas.ca.us/services/animalservices/animalservices.cfm