The Santuario de Animales San Francisco de Asís is proud to have been a part of the Spayathon for Puerto Rico initiative, a coalition of over 25 local, national, and international organizations that worked together to provide free spay/neuter and vaccination services throughout Puerto Rico. Three times a year, a series of Ground Teams and Veterinary Teams simultaneously deployed in different areas of the island to provide these clinics at no cost.
The Santuario served as a Ground Team, which means that we worked in logistics, community outreach, on-site registration, volunteer recruiting, and daily management of the clinic. We were paired with the Cornell University team under the Maddie’s Shelter Medicine program.
Working together, these teams impacted over 52,000 cats and dogs all over Puerto Rico. A per round breakdown for Spayathon for Puerto Rico, shared by The Humane Society of the United States, is:
• Round 1, completed in June of 2018, treated 5,608 cats and dogs.
• Round 2, completed in November of 2018, treated 7,722 cats and dogs.
• Round 3, completed in February of 2019, treated 8,428 cats and dogs.
• Round 4, completed in May of 2019, treated 8,644 cats and dogs.
• Round 5, completed in November of 2019, treated 7,233 cats and dogs.
• Round 6, completed in February of 2020, treated 8,276 cats and dogs.
The Santuario is truly honored to have been part of this historic initiative, and we are proud to have worked alongside dedicated professionals to bring high quality, high volume spay/neuter services to Puerto Rico, all the while local veterinarians could also advance their knowledge and practice, as well as implementation, of these skills to their own clinics.
Our team was deployed in San Germán, Guayama, Cayey, San Sebastián, and Mayagüez. Originally meant to last four rounds, two more rounds took place due to the great demand expressed by the public.
We are proud to have been a part of this momentous undertaking and hope that such a fantastic opportunity arises again.