Saving Grace Animal Society (along with other animal welfare organizations across the world) have been blessed by the Betty White movement and the legacy that the beloved animal advocate has left behind.

Saving Grace launched the Betty White Challenge in honour of Betty’s 100th birthday January 17th with a goal to raise $10,000. When I checked our tally at 9:00 am, just hours into the campaign we were blown away to have already reached that goal. As the hours went on the funds just continued to come in. This movement was bigger than anyone could have imagined, we feel absolutely blessed. To date the Betty White Challenge has brought in just over $120,000 for the Society.

The end of 2021 was a rough time for the society with donations and adoptions down and intakes higher than ever. We had to temporarily close our doors and were only able to accept emergency cases such as medical animals, orphans and moms. Going into 2022 we were thankful to see adoptions and donations pick up but intakes still remain high. Now we’ve been faced with the issue of not having enough surgery space to fully vet all these animals for adoption. We’ve been able to add another half surgery day weekly but are still finding the space isn’t enough to get everyone through. Many other rescues are struggling with the same issue due to a shortage of vets in AB. Now more than ever our Campaign to build our own vet clinic next to our shelter is needed more than ever and with this boost from The Betty White Challenge it’s never looked so real to us. This is exactly the boost we needed.

To date the Brick to Brick Campaign to raise funds for the Vet Clinic was sitting at $380,000 out of the original $500,000 we needed to build. Going into 2022 we got news that all permits were approved and we were good to proceed with the build. With $120,000 we have successfully reached our goal and now there is nothing holding us back! (except the winter temperatures)

To contribute to the Brick by Brick campaign you can donate online at www.savinggracecanada.com/store/brickbybrick