Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By Larry Souders

Star Correspondent

A local animal lover made a large donation Tuesday afternoon to help furnish the new Low-Cost Spay & Neuter Clinic being built next door to the Elizabethton/Carter County Animal Shelter at 135 Sycamore Shoals Drive in Elizabethton.

Louie Greene has been a strong advocate of the shelter and animals in the community for many years. He said that he hoped that his $10,000 donation would encourage more people to donate to the clinic. He believes in having his pets spayed or neutered and that this new clinic would help others afford to do the same to help control the population of the community’s dogs and cats. Greene has adopted two small dogs from the shelter named Corky and Anne over the years.

ECCAS director Shannon Posada said that she and Friends of the Elizabethton/Carter County Animal Shelter President Mike Barnett were very excited to receive this generous donation from Greene. The funds will be used to finish the interior of the clinic and furnish it with the equipment needed to get it up and running.

Barnett told the Star that Greene has been a huge supporter of animals in the community. He has donated numerous times in the past.

“He’s been a real blessing,” Barnett said of Greene. “And that’s many, many years. He’s given generously in the past. Hopefully, this donation today will help jump-start a lot of our fundraising ability to start putting equipment and furniture and stuff we need for the inside of the building once we get it erected.”

Barnett continued, “We are going to see a lot of things happening here at the site. We’ll see concrete being poured, the plumbing stubbed up. We’re going to have the prefab building delivered and erected toward the end of May. We’re going to be seeing a lot of movement on this site, and we’re hoping it’s going to excite the community about having a low-cost spay and neuter clinic. They can bring their animals in for wellness checks, rabies shots, and vaccines for their pets.”

Barnett said that if the community continues to donate, if there is someone who could be as generous as Greene, their hope is to have the clinic up and running by the fall of this year.

The Friends of the Elizabethton-Carter County Animal Shelter is raising money to build and then run a low-cost clinic. Their plan is to staff this facility with a full-time veterinarian and vet techs. This is a much-needed clinic that will offer low-cost spays, neuters, vaccinations, and flea and worm medications to Carter County and surrounding counties.

Carter County in Northeast Tennessee is considered one of the lowest socioeconomic areas in the state. With over 19% of the people below the poverty line, our residents cannot afford to spay or neuter their cats and dogs. This has led to ever-increasing overpopulation of feral, stray, and abandoned animals.

Our residents want to give their pets the best healthcare possible but cannot afford the medical costs to do that.

Donations can be made directly to the Friends of the Elizabethton/Carter County via check sent to FECCAS, P.O. Box 1583, Elizabethton, TN 37644, or online at www.feccas.org.