Friends of Southern Ocean County Animal Shelter Inc.

The mission of this organization shall be to prevent cruelty to animals, to promote kindness to animals, and to conduct projects for the benefit and welfare of animal of Southern Ocean County, including providing funds for spay/neuter to prevent over-breeding, conducting a Trap-Neuter-Return Program with colony caretakers, providing additional medical/veterinary care for Southern Ocean County Animal Facility dogs and cats, and promote shelter adoptions by volunteering at the shelter to walk dogs and socialize cats and through publicity and public events.

Our vision is an educated community embracing its cats and dogs as welcomed pet family members, a co

Goal One: Expand Trap-Neuter-Return Program to reduce feral cat populations: capture, spay/neuter, administer medical needs, microchip, & oversee cat colonies to impact public health and animal well-being.

Goal Two: Increase cat and dog adoptions in the Southern Ocean County region through cat & dog fostering, community outreach, and dog rescue relocation.

Goal Three: To assess, organize, and commit to re-evaluating our current offerings, programs, fundraisers, and approaches to animal rescue by streamlining efforts executed by a small volunteer base.

Friends of Southern Ocean County Animal Shelter (FOSOCAS) uses a 3-pronged approach to animal welfare by working directly with the shelter, enlisting key partners, and engaging community. FOSOCAS supports the work of the Southern Ocean County Animal Shelter, run by Department of Health. Friends volunteers walk shelter dogs daily; transfer & transport flagged dogs to breed-specific rescue partners to help with placement; provide fostercare for special needs animals; promote the availability of dogs, cats, and kittens for adoption; and orchestrate services and outreach like the TNR Program, Pet Food Bank, and community awareness events. All of this requires face-to-face contact. Our work did not stop as a result of the pandemic, but we had to pivot our volunteer model. For example, the county-run shelter observed stringent COVID protocols which limited FOSOCAS volunteer access. We adapted our Shelter Dog Walking Program (exercising dogs twice daily), limiting access to two vaccinated volunteers/shift. Cat-kitten transfer from shelter to foster homes, or the PetsMart Adoption Center, also became more orchestrated, timed, and limited to fewer volunteers. With fewer opportunities, many volunteers have moved on or we have lost contact with them - this will hurt us as we ramp up in 2022. Our ability to adopt out and to fundraise also suffered, as many of our in-person hosted events, community festivals, and adoption clinics were canceled. We moved our Asks to include social media and email appeals, both platforms needed more Followers, engagement, and technology know-how. This forced us to embrace a more dynamic approach to engaging a younger audience on platforms unfamiliar to us, with limited volunteer capacity and knowledge. Our need to meet FOSOCAS expenses moved us to spend more on direct mail to secure monetary support. As a result, we managed to cover our monthly expenses in 2020 & 2021. We anticipate pandemic restrictions through 2022 and will change as needed.