Circle of Giving Gives to the SPCA
By Kip Tabb –
Community Foundation Giving Circle presenting check to the Outer Banks SPCA.
Walking into the SPCA back on Driftwood Drive in Manteo is at once joyous and heartbreaking. Joy because there is so much love in that building—the love of the workers for their charges, the delight of a family that has just given a stray a new home.
But it is heartbreaking too, because no matter how much you may wish to take home the cat that reaches out to touch you as you walk by or the dog that sits, wags its tail and looks at you with pleading eyes, there is no way they can all be brought home.
This was a joyous occasion, though. Shelter Director John Graves had no idea the donation was coming and as he expressed his gratitude, he told how important the money is to the work the SPCA does.
“A $500 donation for us is a really big donation and it will touch a lot of lives,” he said.
OBCF Executive Director Lorelei Costa at the October Circle of Giving meeting where the group decided how to distribute the funds they had collected.
Although the Dare County provides for the basic care of the animals in the shelter, it is donations like the Circle of Giving $500 that gives the animals the more advanced medical care they need. “Our Bubba Mend-A-Friend Fund is our medical fund,” Graves explained. “If a dog comes in with a broken leg or a cat needs an extra surgery, that fund covers it. All of those funds and our spay and neuter funds are covered by donations.”
OBCF Circle of Giving is a family oriented giving opportunity that helps teach children about giving and how it can impact lives. “It is an organization that works together with families to pool their giving,” Avery Harrison, Chair of the Circle of Giving said.
A Circle of Giving brings families together within an organization—in this case the OBCF—to create a fund to give donations. In early October the Giving Circle met to decide how to disperse the money they had raised.
This year the families had over $4000 to distribute and they voted to give the money to as many organizations as they could. When the group gathered to vote on how to distribute the funds, no clear winner emerged and the decision was taken to give donations to a number of groups. Grants were awarded to Surfing for Autism, Room at the Inn, the SPCA and Food for Thought.
