The Beatrice Humane Society has some new wheels to show off.
On Friday, several board members of the Beatrice Humane Society were handed the keys to a 2-thousand-21 cargo van that the Beatrice animal shelter will be able to use to transport animals. President of the Board John Rypma says the purchase of the van was made possible thru the generosity of Zoellner Ford of Beatrice and the Gage County Foundation….
“Substantial amount of this was donated by Zoellner Ford and we got some assistance from the Gage County Foundation. And this enabled us to move up from our 16 year old van that we have had and have put a lot of miles on. We were in bad need of a new van and are extremely proud of Zoellner Ford and Gage County Foundation for making it possible for us to have better transportation for our animals.”
Owner of Zoellner Ford of Beatrice, Jason Zoellner says his dealership was excited to be a part of this project…
“In business we feel it’s our job to give back to the community and so we took it to our team, and our team really felt that it was something our team would have a passion for, and we pick certain things that we have a passion for, and we have a passion for animals so we thought we would give back at this capacity.”
Zoellner says the cargo van will meet the needs of the animal shelter as they serve the community…
“This is 2021 Ford Transit Connect Cargo Van XL so it’s a little longer wheel base so it will haul plenty of puppies and plenty of big dogs too.”
Director of the animal shelter Carlee Fiddess says the van will meet one of the goals of the shelter…that goal being “saving lives”….
“This last year with Covid we transported in more animals than we ever have before because they needed it. They are being euthanize just for being alive 20, 30 or 40 miles from here when shelters were shutting their doors. It was a really hard thing to go thru but seeing the different rescues and the different organizations work together to really start saving these lives and making life long partnerships at this point and time”
Fiddess has recently made trips to Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas to rescue dogs and cats and have brought the animals back to the area for adoption.
The shelter presently owns a full size van which they will keep as a back-up for other needs of the shelter.
