If you have any heart at all, compassion, empathy, support for the small, the downtrodden, those that can't fend for themselves, then keep reading because Wanda Price and the Humboldt SPCA need someone just like you.
Price is the shelter manager and director of care at the local SPCA, a tireless, daunting position she has held for two years after volunteering for five years.
I go into the shelter Thursday morning and Price is there, like she always is, darting around the building, mopping up floors, on hands and knees scrubbing cages, scooping litter boxes, rinsing out dishes, feeding the animals, petting the animals, cuddling the animals, walking the animals, cooing and talking sweetly to the animals.
She certainly gets help from volunteers in the evening or early in the morning from time to time but for the most part, it's just Price.
She does it all.
But she's not resentful or bitter because it's a job she loves, after growing up in British Columbia on a property with horses, chickens, birds, dogs and cats.
It's what she knows.
But she's tired. And she needs help from us, our city, the communities that surround us.
Not for her but for the animals, the cats that fill rooms, kennels and cages throughout the building. The dogs occupying the dog runs outside that create a cacophony of excited barking when one pulls up to the shelter.
They're thinking maybe this is the day. This is the day I'll be adopted.
I convince Price to rest her feet for a second as we sit down at a table but almost immediately she pulls out a cardboard box.
Seven tiny week-old kittens inside. Fragile and almost pathetic looking, their mom was killed and Price, because her heart is too big to turn away any critter in need, is bottle-feeding them. And wiping them off, their fur sticky and unkempt. And talking to me. And petting Snookie, a beagle at the shelter who has gotten curiously pudgy in the past few days and Price, like I, suspects she's pregnant.
"I'm just hoping she didn't mate with a German Shepherd or a big dog like that. That'll be a hard delivery for her. I'll have to be there for her in case anything goes wrong. I don't want her to go through that alone," Price says.
That's the crux of Price's dilemma: She dedicates her entire days and nights, selflessly, to the animals but it's still not enough. The shelter is in dire need of help, coming in the form of volunteers, money, items.
Anything.
The SPCA has occupied the same building on Highway 5 for the past seven years, a former Grainland Seeds building that is slowly falling apart.
Parts of the ceiling are crumbling and leaking, some of the lights don't work properly but most of all, it's just not big enough for the number of helpless animals that arrive at the shelter on a weekly basis.
"We just don't have enough room. We're not big enough anymore," Price says.
She points to the dilapidated ceiling. "I mean, come on. That's just unacceptable," she says.
The shelter isn't affiliated with other organizations. It's maintained exclusively by the Humboldt SPCA organization, running entirely on their funds alone.
"Everyone assumes we're government funded but we're not. We don't get help from the higher-ups like that," she says.
The SPCA has searched arduously for grants but none seem to apply to the shelter. They used to receive about $5000 a year from the City of Humboldt but the corporation has decided to hold those funds in order to retain the property the SPCA hopes to convert into the new shelter in the future.
But their building fund is growing at a snail's pace.
They have the property but need about $650,000 to build the new, more spacious shelter. So far, they're at about $120,000.
In the meantime, Price and the animals are desperate for monetary donations and volunteers to keep the shelter going, a thoughtful, noble act that Price herself made when she quit her full-time job to work at the shelter a couple of years ago.
"We're losing about $1000 a month because we have to pay me to work here," she said. But she says if she wasn't committing her life to working day in and day out at the shelter, early mornings and late evenings, the shelter wouldn't exist at all.
The SPCA pays $1,500 a month in vet bills, on top of their $1,400 monthly rent bill plus their utilities. It's a costly endeavor and Price fears the worst: That the SPCA just doesn't have the funds or volunteers to keep the shelter going.
Right now, the shelter needs manpower. Badly.
"We need morning dog walkers, well just dog walkers really, and someone to come in between 8:30 and 10 a.m. to help feed the cats and clean cages," Price says.
The shelter also needs volunteers to help organize and run fundraisers and are looking for donations of specialty food items like wet puppy and kitten food. They're running much too low on it and with three litters of kittens, plus an impending litter of puppies, it's something they desperately need to have on their shelves.
Price says they can't get enough of bleach and clumping cat litter, so donations of any of these items would be more than appreciated.
Despite the crisis the shelter is funneling into, Price is quick to sing the praises of the volunteers she already has, and the members of the SPCA who are valiantly trying to get the building fund off the ground running.
Kathleen Forster, the new president of the organization, is arranging the second-annual Lady and Nikka's Dog Walk, an initiative where the city's dog owners can collect pledges to walk their dogs with fellow dog owners. Price expects the event will take place sometime in July. And on Aug.10, the SPCA will be helping run a barbecue at the Peavey Mart, where people can make donations to the shelter.
With two new board members in the form of a secretary and treasurer, Price is hoping the shelter and our city can band together to bring the SPCA through the dusk and into the dawn.
Most importantly, the animals need to go to loving homes. Permanent, forever homes.
Like Peter, the fluffy, creamsicle coloured barn cat who'd make a great mouser. Or Sparky, a fuzzy little mutt who can hardly contain his excitement when someone pops by his kennel outside. Or Mack the Rottie-mix, whose little knob of a tail shakes vigorously with anticipation when being patted or Gabby, Kashi, Sky and the countless other dogs who wait every day for someone to come across their cage and go "I want this one, mom!"
And for Bud, Nodd, Sleepy, Grumpy Cat and the other little felines who have been at the shelter for more than a year, so desperate for affection, for even a head pat, that when I clean out their litter boxes every Sunday night, they swarm around me in a mass of purring, licking and rubbing, crawling into my lap, nuzzling my head.
I always take an extra 15 minutes with each pod of cats but I know there are people out there who can do better than that.
Whether you're retired or working, on vacation, have free time, a big heart, love animals, don't have time but will make time or just someone who wants to help out, call Price at the SPCA immediately. One thing I've learned since moving to Humboldt is that we're a smaller community but a close-knit one and I've already seen the empathetic character of our residents in the form of fundraisers and lemonade stands.
Now it's time to turn attention to our city's critters in need.
Not because Price and her volunteers aren't doing everything they can, but because the animals can't do anything at all.
So they need us.
