A common belief in the animal rescue world held that if someone couldn’t afford a several hundred dollar adoption fee, they shouldn’t be allowed to adopt. After all, how would they be able to provide for the pet’s needs, which would surely exceed that adoption fee amount in less than a year?
That isn’t the way that Charles Stanton sees it, though. Stanton came to animal welfare through his work as a health care advocate. He was helping raise money for an H.I.V. clinic in Houston, which served people who were destitute as well as very ill, and yet those patients who were pet owners were among the most loving caregivers for their animals that he had ever seen. At that clinic, tending to the patient meant also caring for the pet – the two were not divisible.
Stanton, who at that time was pairing grant writing with a career as an opera singer, ultimately became more and more interested in animal welfare, which is how he ended up as executive director of the New Hampshire Humane Society in December 2019.
Stanton, who came to NHHS after leading a high-volume animal shelter in Yakima, Washington, was brought in with a mandate to evolve the nonprofit organization. The pandemic that arrived right on his heels had a cooling effect on some of those changes, but Stanton and his board of directors have done what they could to move forward. Some of those changes have included a substantial increase in pay for staff and a sliding scale for adoption fees.
Instead of acting as a gatekeeper for which people deserve to be pet owners, the NHHS, under Stanton’s leadership, is repositioning itself as a partner to empower community members who can offer a loving home for an animal in need of such.
He explains that shift in two ways. The first is based on simple numbers.
“There are way too many pets in need of homes, throughout this country, for us to be cherry-picking,” Stanton said.
The second is more philosophical. The word “humane” is in the organization’s title, and, he suggested, shouldn’t that be extended to fellow humans?
“If somebody comes in and we know they are going to provide a good home, then, yes, I want (them) to be a pet owner,” Stanton said. “I would like to think that we as a society would empower them, whether or not they have the means to care for them.”
Sometimes such shifts come with a visual metaphor, and that is just what arrived on Thursday morning: a tractor-trailer loaded with 25 pallets of pet food, toys and other equipment, all donated by Chewy.com by way of the Humane Society of the United States, and all earmarked to be given away to pet owners in need.
The NHHS has had a pet food pantry for some time, but, said Stanton, it would usually take just one pallet of food to restock it.
“Easily, we are filling our pantry 25 times over,” he said. Now comes the challenge of getting the food into the hands of pet owners who could use some help feeding their animals.
Those who wish to access the food may call NHHS at 524-3252, send an email to reception@nhhumane.org, or knock on the door during regular hours.
“As long as we’ve got it, we’ll give it out,” Stanton said.
That truckload of food and equipment landed as the NHHS is beginning to develop its strategy as a partner organization for Pets For Life, an HSUS initiative that seeks to address inequity when it comes to pet ownership. Whereas one school of thought might say that people with limited means shouldn’t own pets, the Pets For Life goal is to enable everyone, especially those living in poverty, to be able to have a pet if they wish to care for one.
Stanton’s shelter in Yakima partnered with Pets For Life, which helped the organization to connect with a mostly income- and transportation-challenged community that didn’t have a pet food store or veterinarian in their town. The Pets For Life program assigns a staff person to walk the streets of that community every day, knocking on doors to build relationships with pet owners, and identifying various issues, such as breeding populations of feral animals.
Stanton said he and the NHHS are currently working to identify which Lakes Region community – and it could be defined as a neighborhood, rather than an entire municipality – is in most need of such attention.
The program helps to ensure that animals are fed and have their medical needs addressed, and in doing so can help lift up the human residents of the neighborhood as well.
“We can invest in a community, we can make it better, and by making it better for pets and their families,” people in those neighborhoods can feel more pride about their homes and their neighbors, Stanton said. “Maybe it starts a ripple effect.”
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