There’s a lot to love about the holiday season, but not much gets us more amped than Giving Tuesday, a global initiative launched in 2012 to promote generosity + encourage folks to do good. Arguably the biggest giving day of the year across the globe, it takes place the Tuesday after Thanksgiving and is an opportunity for people to make donations to their favorite charities, non-profits, and philanthropic organizations.

Last month, we invited you, our dear readers, to help bring awareness to the local orgs that help keep our community connected + running, and we told y’all we’d choose one lucky organization at random to receive a $1,000 donation from 6AM City and a special shout-out in the newsletter.

We received so many thoughtful nominations, and today we’re delighted to highlight the winning organization, Carolina Loving Hound Rescue. To ensure everyone knows who they are, what they do, and why their work is so important to the folks in Greenville, we’re sharing a brief Q + A sesh with them. Read on and enjoy some good old-fashioned educational warm fuzzies (’tis the season, after all).

Image provided by Carolina Loving Hound Rescue

What is the purpose of your organization?

We are a small, home foster based animal rescue organization. Our main purpose and mission is to provide safe and loving homes for the animals that we rescue. By adhering to our motto of the 4 R’s – Rescue, Rehab, Rehome or Retire – we can help those that are adoptable as well as those that are simply too sick or broken to find another home. The latter will retire with one of us and become cherished members of our Sanctuary program. Unfortunately, with some, the kindest thing we can do is offering them a pain free passage. Our animals are rescued primarily from high kill shelters, owner surrenders, and through networking with some of our local emergency rooms.

How do you go about making that happen?

We provide a safe environment as well as the continuing medical care that is required while the healing process takes place. Overcoming the physical + emotional scars suffered at the hands of their previous humans takes time. We allow each animal the necessary time to heal both body and mind. Carolina Loving Hound Rescue will give them the psychological space and respect they deserve to facilitate total healing. We will teach them that not all human touch will cause pain but rather that it is a source of love, caring, and nurturing. Once healed, many of our animals are placed into loving forever homes. Some remain within CLHR’s Sanctuary Program.

How has the pandemic affected your work?

For the most part, we have been able to maintain the status quo with respect to our intake and how we handle our medical cases. Veterinary appointments have become more time consuming because of the many layers of safety precautions placed upon our volunteers and the clinic staff in order to facilitate safe interactions at the clinics. Our adoptions have been strictly through social media as we are not able to hold our usual adoption events. In addition to the cancelled events, we have also been forced to hold all fundraising via social media. This has significantly impacted our budget as our events are always extraordinarily successful and fruitful for the animals. However, in order to keep our humans as safe as we do our animals, we have followed an extremely strict protocol.

What have you done this year that you’re most proud of?

Honestly, there are so many things to be proud of this year. I am most proud of the fact that we have been able to remain operational. This has been an extremely hard year, but I believe our success is because of the incredible team of volunteers we have, as well as our supporters. They have allowed us to shift and bend with the times. One of our biggest accomplishments this year has been to help more families keep their animals rather than surrender them to a shelter. Sometimes all it took was a few supplies or a little help with a bill they were not able to pay. Education is such a big part of our interaction with our community.

Can you briefly share a story of how your work has helped one of your clients/the community you serve?

There are so many, but one stands out this year. A young couple’s dog was hit by a car and had some significant facial trauma and trauma to the body. They took their pup to one of the clinics that we use but were unable to afford the care needed to treat the wounds and after care. One of the clinic’s team members reached out to us, and we were in the position to help cover the bill and the aftercare for this great little Beagle mix. The dog recovered 100% and is a very loved member of this couple’s family. Another sweet encounter was with a family that had an older little dog that was unable to use his back legs. We were able to gift them with a wheelchair for their dog, and he now has a new lease on life as he is zooming around their home. There is no greater gift than to be able to help others. Helping the dogs by helping the families that love them is a big win in our book. We are fortunate to have the support needed when we are asked to help.

What is the greatest challenge to your organization and its work?

There is never enough time, space, or money to help all the animals we want to help. To come to the aid of an animal, we must have a place for that animal to go, the money to cover the animal’s care, and the time to provide the care for them. We focus primarily on medical cases, and they need more funds and a longer time to recover to eventually make it to the adoptable phase. Sometimes all the stars simply lineup, but many times, we are missing at least one of the three prerequisites.

What is one thing you wish people knew or understood about the work you do?

That we are all volunteers and do this for the love of animals. The work is often thankless, as we are never able to help as many as need us. People often think that we can take all animals at any given time. Since we operate using totally home-based foster homes, we are limited only by the number of qualified foster homes we have. I wish we had a facility and could help more, but right now, we help where we can.