Donations dropped for local pound

Supply Donations for Rural Pounds NSW Facebook page have just kicked off a few weeks ago, and organiser Viv McElhenny has been overwhelmed with support. She initially started supporting local pounds, and has been collecting and donation for almost 15 years.

“I never branched out from my local area until I got heavily involved in res- cue, then I soon learnt how desperate things were for rural pounds,” she said.

“I saw a few posts and I just thought this is terrible, we have to do something. So, I just messaged a couple of the girls and I said, look, I’m thinking about this let’s get a good collection together, and let’s try and get some donations and get them out to rural pounds.”

Since then, the organisation has donated to several rural pounds, with Gilgandra being one.

“Kristy from Dubbo City Animal Shelter and Wellington Pound was com- ing to Sydney, so she came and picked up a whole heap of stuff for Molong, where she was going to deliver for me,” said Ms McElhenny.

“I was telling her how one of our biggest issues is transport getting to the pounds, so she said she could take Gilgandra, Parkes and Narromine. She said if you can get it to me, then I’ll help you to get it out. She’s a godsend, Kristy from Dubbo, let me tell you.”

Since starting to collect for rural pounds, Ms McElhenny said the team has been “smashed” for dona- tions, and hopes the support continues.

“A lot of it is word of mouth. I post to some of my local Facebook community pages when we ask for donations, it’s a pretty varied request of what we want. And if we’re in desperate need of particular things, we repost and we’ll be like, okay, we really need trampoline beds, or we really need dog jackets.

“The community is amazing, I put out a post on my local community Facebook page for trampoline beds, and I said, dogs are laying on cold concrete slabs, and I had 13 trampoline beds delivered in 24 hours.”

The team is constantly in awe of stranger’s kindness. They are always on the lookout for someone to deliver out to rural pounds for them, and they know that some- one will always put their hand up, making the job just that bit easier.

“It’s just lovely that we we’re so overwhelmed with the amount of donations that come in, and yet people are just happy to get the stuff out there,” said Ms McElhenny.

“When we post for transport if we can’t get out, peo- ple will just ask someone and then they’ll ask someone until we can get it, because if we can’t get the transport then we can’t get into the pound.

“If we’re all working from time, we just can’t take an eight hour trip in the car to go and deliver, so it’s it’s nice that there are people out there who try to help,” she concluded.