The Latest Update from Best Friends

The latest update from Michael Mountain of Best Friends
It was "All aboard the Best Friends adoption trucks!" on New Year's Eve, as 138 lost and displaced pets from Hurricane Katrina set out on a bold journey to good new homes up the East Coast in states from Delaware to Maine.
There were Labs and beagles, hounds and shepherds, moms and puppies - all of them part of a final post-hurricane rescue/adoption drive. You can see their very happy faces on the Best Friends web site at http://www.bestfriends.org.
You'll remember that back in November, a Best Friends assessment of Greater New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast concluded that while most official rescue efforts had ended, there were still thousands of displaced pets roaming the region.
Thousands of you signed a petition urging national humane groups to work together to rescue as many of these dogs and cats as possible. We drew up a plan, and this final rescue/adoption drive is now in full swing.
It includes a whole new Best Friends rescue center at Celebration Station (a former amusement center in Metairie), from where teams of volunteers are organizing rescue programs each day. In Mississippi, animals go to the Humane Society of Southern Mississippi, which has very good temporary facilities for them.
Then, after a five-day holding and checkup period, these dogs and cats are ready to head out to shelters and rescue groups for adoption.
We expect this final rescue drive to be completed by the end of February. You can follow the progress on the new Best Friends Network site at http://network.bestfriends.org/hurricane. (The new Network site is where communities of Best Friends members work together on life-saving projects like this one. And it's growing rapidly.)
Also on the Network site, you can see a copy of the rescue plan and the budget. (Click on the Resources tab.) While Best Friends is funding the bulk of the operation through donations to our Hurricane Relief Fund, we're most grateful to the Humane Society of the United States, the ASPCA, and the United Animal Nations for their support of this effort, too.
As things stand, however, there's still going to be a shortfall, and that's why I'm asking you to make one final donation to the Best Friends Hurricane Relief Fund so that we can bring this last-ditch rescue effort to a successful and heart-warming conclusion. You can donate to the fund directly at http://www.bestfriends.org/donate/hrf2.cfm.
You've been so generous already, and you can see from their faces how much your furry friends appreciate it! They are true survivors. You can imagine what it's been like for them, eking out a living on their own since the end of August when Hurricane Katrina blew in. And you can imagine what it's like for them now as they're finally rescued and someone whispers in their ear that they're going to be O.K. after all.
Thank you so much for making it all possible. Michael Mountain
Thank you to all who came to the New Woman Books on Saturday and Carousel Ranch on Sunday. Joy & Martha had a wonderful time meeting and talking with everyone!