Riverhead Animal Shelter may finally be moving from the cramped, outdated facility on Youngs Avenue that has been the subject of so much public controversy.
North Fork Animal Welfare League launched a capital campaign today to replace the Henry Pfeifer Community Center in Calverton with a state-of-the-art, renovated facility within two years, where the Riverhead Animal Shelter would relocate from its current site beside the closed town landfill on Youngs Avenue.
It will cost $1 million to renovate the community center’s existing building and construct an attached pavilion for additional kennels, which together will make up the new animal shelter.
Between the fundraising efforts of Riverhead Move the Animal Shelter and some private donations, the League says it is already halfway there.
“We’ve worked very hard to get the current [facility] functional for the dogs in the time being,” said Gillian Wood-Pultz, executive director of North Fork Animal Welfare League. “But we’ve done all the improvements that we can there. We desperately need a new facility.”
North Fork Animal Welfare League has transformed Riverhead Animal Shelter’s current location since it took over operations from the town in 2013. Small changes, like a stockade fence to help block the noise of a road heavily frequented by tractor trailers, have significantly improved the animals’ quality of life.
The League hired an on-staff trainer to work with the dogs several days a week to stamp out behavioral issues. Daily sanitation in the indoor kennels and the introduction of elevated “beds” in each kennel have made the dogs healthier, happier and more adoptable animals.
But the shelter’s facilities are still outdated and inadequate. The shelter’s kennel building doesn’t have proper lighting, ventilation or space, which makes it difficult for staff members and volunteers to do their jobs. Dogs are confined every night to small, concrete kennels which face each other across a narrow hallway, where the League now hangs a tarp to alleviate tension between dogs that would be otherwise forced to stare at each other for 16 hours straight.
And the shelter’s current location adjacent to a garbage processing plant means that tractor trailers are regularly barreling down the road where volunteers and staff walk the dogs every day.
“We’re really looking forward to getting literally out of the dump and getting somewhere that will be much, much better for the animals,” Wood-Pultz said today.
The proposed new facility at the Henry Pfeifer Community Center will double the amount of animals the shelter can hold, enabling Riverhead Animal Shelter to accept cats for the first time with the addition of a cattery.
While the current shelter’s facility only has one office, the new facility will have space for training staff and volunteers, holding community programs and private rooms where animals can be introduced to potential adopters.
The proposed site has ample parking for visitors and staff, and its location on a much quieter road, surrounded by acres of forest at EPCAL, would significantly decrease anxiety in the animals.
The community center, which has been underutilized by the town due to its remote location, has been leased to the League by the town at no cost in exchange for renovations to the community center building and construction of the attached pavilion.
The League today held a press conference to launch its capital campaign, which will raise the remaining $500,000 needed to begin construction. Donors can take advantage of naming opportunities, ranging from $150 to name a memorial brick to $25,000 to name the facility’s community education suite.
The League hopes to raise the $1 million needed by the time the facility’s site plan is approved by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and Riverhead Town.
A combination of private and corporate donations, fundraising events and naming opportunities will raise the funds needed to “get the shovel in the ground,” according to Tammy Severino, the League’s Capital Campaign Director.
“We’re looking at opening our doors roughly two years from today,” Severino said.
Donations can be made online at the North Fork Animal Welfare League’s website.
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