Audrey Driver
Staff Writer
Niijhoom Roy
Staff Writer
Men and women from the city of Troy and around Pike County came together on Feb. 9 to officially break ground for the building project of the new Pike Animal Shelter.
According to the founder society’s chair, Donna Schubert, “a large part of this project has its home at Troy University.”
When Schubert, a former professor of public relations in the School of Journalism at Troy University, was teaching her students, they became aware of the need for an animal shelter and it became their class project.
Many people “gave of their time and got excited about it and helped put this thing in start,” Schubert said. “Also, Mayor (Jason) Reeves has been a great champion of this project.
“There will also be opportunities for volunteer work and adoption of animals.”
According to Schubert, who is now associate vice chancellor for marketing and communication, five main entities came together to build the Pike Animal Shelter: the Troy Animal Shelter Coalition, the Humane Society of Pike County, the cities of Troy and Brundidge, and Pike County.
According to the former president of the Pike County Humane Society, Jack Rainey, the Humane Society started fundraising for the project about six years ago.
“This project has been a long time coming, but a great thing,” Rainey said. “There was such a great need for the shelter.”
According to Rainey, the efforts to raise the money for the project were aided by the partnership that the Humane Society and the Pike County Coalition group were able to form with Pike County and the cities of Troy and Brundidge.
“It’s been a great partnership and is going to be a great facility,” Rainey said.
“Not only will it be a great place to bring in stray dogs, neglected dogs or abused dogs, but it is going to have a great adoption facility area in it also,” Rainey said.
“We expect a tremendous amount of animals to be adopted that in the past would have just been put down.”
According to Rainey, there will be requirements met before an animal is handed over to its new owner. He said these animals will receive special treatment and the volunteers at the facility will make sure the animals’ new homes are healthy, proper environments.
“We will have vets on call at all times, but we will not have vets stationed in the facility,” Rainey said.
According to Rainey, they also have an eventual goal to open a pet park at the facility to provide a place for animals to interact and play.
According to pikeanimals.org, the site selection for the Pike Animal Shelter was determined by appropriate zoning, accessibility for animal control officers and community members, visibility, safety, utility access and appropriateness for an animal shelter facility.
The land for the new facility was donated by the Walt Stell family in honor of his parents and the address of the building site is 800 Henderson Highway, Troy.
“It was a cold day but a great day, something that everybody has been looking forward to in the community,” said Shelia Jackson, director of public relations for the city of Troy.
“It’s been a great day for the ground-breaking ceremony for the Pike Animal Shelter. There has been a wonderful crowd for it to be so cold.”
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