DARTCC RECEIVES $75K GRANT
Emergency Animal Shelter App Receives $75,000 Grant From Animal Welfare Foundation
Jericho, VT – January 5, 2024 – DART Command Central, a nonprofit developing a mobile app that helps communities prepare for disasters and manage temporary emergency pet shelters, is pleased to announce a grant of $75,000 provided by The Irving and Phyllis Millstein Foundation for Animal Welfare. The Foundation is An Animal-Centered Philanthropy® type, and among its giving priorities are grants for animal relocation, care, and shelter support during emergencies.
This grant expedites the product development efforts in launching the DARTCC Shelter Module. The Foundation has our deepest gratitude and appreciation for this generous grant. The $75,000 grant pushes DARTCC further toward our goals, reaching over $100,000 in total funding in 2023.
“It’s very gratifying to get this financial support,” says Deb Shelby, founder of DARTCC. “Our volunteer efforts have grown from an idea into a beneficial tool for shelter volunteers who care for pets during a disaster. We need tools like DARTCC to help educate communities, and prepare and train volunteers to manage emergency pet shelters so all pets can stay safe.”
This is only the beginning of our fundraising effort. To date, our work has been carried out by volunteers. However, with this funding, we can devote more time to the application and prototyping of new features. But we still need to raise significantly more to create the full shelter module envisioned, including the development of an offline mobile app to help volunteers manage pet shelters during disaster emergencies.
Climate change is causing more and more frequent disaster emergencies, making disaster preparedness more critical than ever. In a single year, only six months apart, Vermont experienced two major floods. DARTCC provided a paperless Shelter Module to volunteers and teams at no cost, and with additional funding and support, we can continue to improve DARTCC to better prepare for such disasters.