$15,000 grant will help cover animal care costs at Grand Forks' Circle of Friends
Apr. 23—GRAND FORKS — A $15,000 grant will support Circle of Friends' animal care efforts, the nonprofit announced Monday.
Animal welfare foundation Petco Love issued the grant to the Grand Forks nonprofit. The funds will go directly toward animal care, said chief operating officer Rachael Murphy.
"It has gone toward our operations and continued support for all of our efforts, including spaying and neutering and emergency medical care," Murphy said.
The grant runs through the calendar year. Funds are unrestricted, meaning the shelter can choose to spend it on whatever it pleases.
Murphy said funding would go toward allowing Circle of Friends to continue to provide the broadest slate of services possible following
significant cost-cutting the nonprofit engaged in earlier this year.
"Spaying and neutering is one of our efforts we're trying to continue. Emergency medical is one of our efforts we're trying to continue," she said. "Vaccinations and microchipping too."
She said the grant funding will also support its emergency hardship efforts, where the shelter holds pets for owners experiencing a personal crisis.
Stray intake from January through March is down overall from the same time last year, though Circle of Friends has seen a rise in abandoned pets — meaning animals left in apartments, stories and pet boarding providers, according to Murphy.
The shelter currently is holding between 20 to 22 animals, with another 12 in foster care. Circle of Friends continues to operate as Grand Forks' city pound.
Murphy said the shelter is coming up on kitten season, a period in the warm weather months when births skyrocket.
She said the shelter will adopt out kittens through its cages at Petco.
"Now is the time to adopt cats," she said. "Because the kittens are cute, but the moms need homes too."
Circle of Friends announced in January it had burned through most of its cash reserves and underwent a dramatic public downsizing over the next month, shedding its chief executive and on-site veterinarian as well as most of its staff in a matter of weeks.
Since then, the shelter has been working to pay off its debts and bring the nonprofit back into the black. It managed to shed its lease on what had once been its Adoption Center on South Washington Street earlier this month, board members said at an April 9 meeting.
The shelter posted a $1.6 million loss in its 2023 fiscal year, which ended March 31, according to documents from its April 9 board meeting, but it had success selling off equipment from the Adoption Center and its cash income exceeded budget projections last month, in part due to the Petco grant.
The nonprofit also received a little over $17,000 from the Community Foundation of Grand Forks, East Grand Forks and Region in March, its annual dividend from that organization.
"For the most part, our finances coming in are getting about equal to what's going out," said board chair Mitch Price, who took over board leadership from interim CEO Chris Douthit. "It's a lot smaller than we used to be, but we're in a good 'maintaining' spot right now."
