Built in the 1950s, the Abilene Animal Shelter was never meant for animals to stay for extended periods of time.
The kennels are small, it’s loud, and it’s hard to keep clean.
“If you can just imagine, it’s absorbed 70 plus years of waste at this point,” said Andrea Robison, the board president for All Kind Animal Initiative.
All Kind took over management of the Abilene Animal Shelter at the beginning of 2023.
The future Pet Adoption and Resource Center, or the PARC, has a mission of addressing existing issues at the shelter.
“It’s actually more than just a single building. It’s gonna be set up like a campus,” Robison said. “With a main building that has our cats and our administration, and then when you go through that building you enter the rest of the campus, which has a huge courtyard area and then four different kennel buildings.”
The goal is to hopefully make the lives of dogs at the shelter better ones.
Dawn Burch, a board member for All Kind, hopes the PARC will make finding the perfect animal a more enjoyable experience, while also “educating the people within the community–– the children especially–– on why it’s important to spay and neuter their pets.”
Burch adopted her dog, Sawyer, from the shelter almost two years ago.
“Sawyer is the most amazing dog,” Burch said. “I like to call him my soul dog.”
The almost five and a half acres of land that will soon be the PARC, will hopefully benefit the animals, the community, and those who work and volunteer there.
All Kind needs to raise $9.5 million to break ground on the facility.
The City of Abilene provided about 40% of that amount, and they’re about 80% of the way there.
If you wish to donate and be a part of bringing the PARC to life, you can donate any amount of money on their website, here.