As many of you know one of my favorite organizations in the entire world is the Mercer Veterinary Clinic for the Homeless in Sacramento, CA. I have been volunteering there as a veterinarian for about 6 years now. The Mercer Clinic provides veterinary care for the pets of the homeless in the Sacramento area free of charge. Unfortunately the Mercer clinic only operates on a monthly basis and for the rest of the month my friend Anneke Vos basically takes care of everything else. You Mercer folks know Anneke, but for those of you that don‚t she is an 82 year old woman with a heart of gold that really cares deeply for the people on the bottom rung of the ladder and especially for their animals. This summer she spent a day in 100 degree weather searching for a homeless man with a limping old, dog named Lily so that she could take Lily to have her knee repaired. All of this, while she suffered from a healing punctured lung. I kid you not, this lady is the real deal and did I mention she is 82…
Anneke has been nominated for Animal Planet’s “Hero of the Year” award and has made it to the final ten participants. I don‚t know how these things work but if she gets the most votes she will receive $10,000 from the show. I know that if she gets the prize, every penny of the 10 grand will be spent helping the pets of the homeless; on things like paying for veterinary care for dogs hit by cars or infected with parvo virus, or finding a good home for an animal who‚s owner was put in jail (the #1 source of mental health care for the poor in CA). If she was not there many of these people would wait 2 or more weeks before their animals could be seen by a veterinarian at the Mercer Clinic. The money would go a long way to help these animals.
Could you please, please do me a favor and spend a few minutes to vote for Anneke? Just clink on the link below and hit the button by Anneke‚s name and picture. Consider it your good deed for the day.
Click Here to Help Us Vote for Anneke!
The voting ends October 8th so please vote early and vote often. Please forward this on to a friend you think would vote.
Thank you very, very much,
Mike Teglas
