News Flash

The Regional Center for Animal Care and Protection is set to receive a $13,000 grant investment from national nonprofit Petco Love in support of their lifesaving work for animals in the Roanoke Valley.

Petco Love is a national nonprofit leading change for pets by harnessing the power of love to make communities and pet families closer, stronger, and healthier. Since its founding in 1999, Petco Love has invested $350 million in adoption and other lifesaving efforts. And Petco Love helps find loving homes for pets in partnership with Petco and more than 4,000 organizations — like ours — across North America, with 6.7 million pets adopted and counting.

“Our investment in the Regional Center for Animal Care and Protection is part of more than $15M in investments recently announced by Petco Love to power local organizations across the country as part of our commitment to create a future in which no pet is unnecessarily euthanized,” said Susanne Kogut, president of Petco Love. “Our local investments are only part of our strategy to empower animal lovers to drive lifesaving change right alongside us. We recently launched Petco Love Lost, a national lost and found database that uses pet image technology to simplify the search for lost pets.”

“We are very grateful for the support of Petco Love in helping us market our lost and adoptable animals who are housed at RCACP,” said Mike Warner, Executive Director. “These funds will allow us to be creative and purchase equipment necessary to create interactive social media posts to highlight our animals in need, as well as provide enrichment opportunities to showcase our animals in the community. We are excited to enhance our educational, marketing, and community volunteer efforts to increase the adoptions of our animals and to provide options to decrease owner surrenders.”

The Regional Center for Animal Care and Protection is the local municipal open intake shelter serving the communities of the City of Roanoke, Counties of Botetourt and Roanoke, and the Town of Vinton. The RCACP intakes approximately 4,000 animals each year through the facility. Since 2017, the RCACP has focused on reducing owner surrenders, increasing adoptions, increasing owner redemptions, and working with various rescues to place animals with their forever homes. We are very fortunate to work with Petco Love to help support those initiatives and to keep our animals in the forefront when residents are looking for lost animals or a new family member. We could not do the lifesaving work we do without their support and encouragement.

For more information about RCACP, visit rcacp.org. Learn more about Petco Love here: petcolove.org.

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About the Regional Center for Animal Care and Protection

The Regional Center for Animal Care and Protection serves the City of Roanoke, the Counties of Botetourt and Roanoke, and the Town of Vinton, and is an “open intake facility.” The Regional Center primarily handles stray animals picked up by the Animal Control Officers employed by the municipalities, but also accepts strays that are found, and animals owned, by citizens of the municipalities served. Each year the Regional Center receives between 3,500 and 4,000 animals. The RCACP primary goal is to return animals to their owners; if an animal goes unclaimed, they are made available for adoption or transferred to other animal welfare organizations.

About Petco Love

Petco Love is a life-changing nonprofit organization that makes communities and pet families closer, stronger, and healthier. Since our founding in 1999 as the Petco Foundation, we’ve empowered animal welfare organizations by investing $350 million in adoption and other lifesaving efforts. We’ve helped find loving homes for more than 6.7 million pets in partnership with Petco and organizations nationwide.

Our love for pets drives us to lead with innovation, creating tools animal lovers need to reunite lost pets, and lead with passion, inspiring and mobilizing communities and our more than 4,000 animal welfare partners to drive lifesaving change alongside us. Join us. Visit petcolove.org or follow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn to be part of the lifesaving work we lead every day.