UNleashed animal Rescue founded

Since October of 2017, some concerned citizens in Keokuk County have been working towards creating an animal rescue for this area. The drive behind the project stems from the President, Angel Holeton, whose concern for the well being of animals defines her. Because of her self-taught knowledge about animals, people have approached her about their animal problems for years, so it only seemed natural that the next step was to start an actual organization. 

            UNleashed is currently licensed as a ‘rescue’ as there is no building or location to operate from. The all-volunteer organization is licensed to “rescue, foster, and re-home” dogs and cats. This does create some limitations on what they can do to help, as each foster home must stay within a certain number of animals in order for UNleashed to keep their license.      With a limit on the number of foster homes available, there is of course a limit on how many animals can be rescued. More foster homes would increase the number of animals that could be helped, and UNleashed is always willing to talk with people about fostering possibilities. Many people don’t think they can foster because it is too hard to let go after bonding with a pet, but UNleashed representatives would point out the joy that comes from uniting a pet with their forever humans and encourage anyone who loves animals to give fostering a try.

            Meanwhile, UNleashed is working towards becoming an official shelter. They have been recognized by the State of Iowa as a non-profit organization, and are now just waiting for the return of the final 5013-C paperwork from the Internal Revenue Service. In the beginning days of the organization, the Vice-President, (me), made some errors in the initial paperwork filing which caused some frustrating delays. Attorney Scott Flynn from Keota now represents UNleashed and has processed all of the non-profit paperwork, successfully jumping through the hoops made by the mistakes of the Vice-President. Now, it is just a matter of waiting for the time to pass for the paperwork to come back completed. 

            The next step for the volunteers is to learn how to find grant money to buy land and construct a shelter. Although the volunteers for UNleashed are new at organization building, they have been quite successful at rescuing and rehoming a multitude of animals in Keokuk County in the past year.

For more on this story and others, catch the December 12 edition of the News-Review.