Young-Williams Animal Center celebrates $250,000 lifesaving investment from Petco Love
Employees of the Petco location on Kingston Pike smile at a check presentation with Young-Williams Animal Center staff including: (L-R) Vice President of Development Holly Jackson-Sullivan, CEO Janet Testerman and PR and Marketing Director Chastedy Smith.
Young-Williams Animal Center has received $250,000 from national nonprofit Petco Love in support of the shelter’s lifesaving work for pets in Knoxville. Shelter representatives and adoptable animals celebrated the grant with check presentations at the Kingston Pike and Farragut Petco locations on May 30, 2024.
“By Petco Love making this lifesaving investment, we can expand our reach to aid even more vulnerable animals in our community,” says Janet Testerman, CEO of Young-Williams Animal Center. “These funds will support low-cost spay/neuter services, animal enrichment and behavioral training, ongoing staff education, public awareness and more, ultimately improving outcomes for a greater number of pets.”
Employees of the Petco location in Farragut smile at a check presentation with Young-Williams Animal Center staff including: (L-R) CEO Janet Testerman, Vice President of Development Holly Jackson-Sullivan and PR and Marketing Director Chastedy Smith.
Young-Williams Animal Center’s vision is “A Home for Every Pet,” and grants like the one from Petco Love helped the nonprofit achieve a 92.76% save rate in 2023, when more than 10,900 animals entered the shelter. Young-Williams Animal Center also assists animal owners in need with programs that include Pets for Life and the Pet Resource Center.
“Our investment in Young-Williams Animal Center is part of more than $15 million in investments recently announced by Petco Love to power local organizations across the country as part of our commitment to create a future in which no pet is unnecessarily euthanized,” said Susanne Kogut, president of Petco Love. “Our local investments are only part of our strategy to empower animal lovers to drive lifesaving change right alongside us. We recently launched Petco Love Lost, a national lost and found database that uses pet image technology to simplify the search for lost pets.”
Petco Love is a national nonprofit leading change for pets by harnessing the power of love to make communities and pet families closer, stronger and healthier. Since its founding in 1999, Petco Love has invested $350 million in adoption and other lifesaving efforts. And Petco Love helps find loving homes for pets in partnership with Petco and more than 4,000 organizations – like ours – across North America, with 6.7 million pets adopted and counting.
“Petco Love is an excellent partner that has helped us change the lives of pets and people significantly,” Testerman says. “On behalf of the entire Young-Williams Animal Center team, we appreciate Petco Love’s investment in our animal welfare efforts and its continued support of our shelter.”
The grant is part of the more than $15 million in investments that Petco Love is committing to animal welfare organizations across the country as part of its annual investment efforts to identify and invest in the most-effective lifesaving animal welfare organizations nationwide.
