Letter to the Editor

Former resident provides hint to shelter

Sunday, December 7, 2008

To the Editor:

I think this might be of interest to your community given the recent problems with funding to the Clay County Humane Shelter.

Zootoo.com is having a national Shelter Makeover Contest (up to $1 million) that is connecting communities with their shelters across the country to help raise awareness for needy animals and increase adoptions.

This is the second time for this contest. Zootoo is a legitimate website and is partnered with the Humane Society of the United States. Any shelter, regardless of size and location, can win the contest.

Last year, 75 percent of the top 20 were from small communities. Residents can support the local shelter by simply being part of the largest online pet community.

I have signed up under the username softcloth. I believe that more points are accumulated if I have "referred" new users to the site. I welcome any and all Clay County residents to my personal page and consider them "referred."

This is something that Bloomington is doing. Of course, this will take efforts on the communities' part to sign up and get the points in order to be selected.

This includes the shelter manager to be signed up as well. I feel that Clay County could greatly benefit from this project and I have personally selected Clay County instead of Monroe County (Bloomington). It is suggested that flyers should be made and efforts to get people involved. There are 96 days left in the contest.

The information can be found at www.zootoo.-com/makeover.

I hope you find this helpful.

Sincerely,

Leigh A. Henderson,

Bloomington, Ind.