Tallahassee-Leon Community Animal Service Center Wins ASPCA's $25K Community Engagement Award

NEW YORK--The ASPCA® (The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals®) today announced that the Tallahassee-Leon Community Animal Service Center in Tallahassee, Fla., has won the ASPCA's $25,000 Community Engagement Award. The award is part of the ASPCA's $100K Challenge, a national contest designed to inspire animal shelters across the country to save more lives.

"Not only did Tallahassee-Leon Community Animal Service Center save over 1,200 animals in three months, they inspired their entire community to become a part of their successes throughout the $100K Challenge," said ASPCA President & CEO Ed Sayres. "Their campaign was innovative and smart, and clearly it created the buzz they needed to engage the community."

The ASPCA Community Engagement Award--a $25,000 grant--will be awarded to Tallahassee-Leon Community Animal Service Center for doing the best job of getting its community involved in saving more lives during the ASPCA $100K Challenge. Tallahassee-Leon Community Animal Service Center was selected as a finalist for the award - along with Mohawk and Hudson River Humane Society in Menands, N.Y. and the Humane Society of Boulder Valley in Boulder, Colo. - based on the 23,543 online votes they received. The ASPCA Grants committee selected Tallahassee-Leon Community Animal Service Center as the winner because of their creative and comprehensive "Reach for the Stars" campaign that recruited dozens of local officials and celebrities to act as "agents" for animals in need of new homes and included an all-night adopt-a-thon and celebrity-themed video segments.

In addition to winning the Community Engagement Award, Tallahassee-Leon Community Animal Service Center saved a total of 1,288 cats and dogs during the three-month challenge, an increase of 335 lives saved over the same period in 2009.

"This contest has been an incredible experience. Our team and the community have demonstrated that collectively we can make a positive difference in the lives of animals every day," said Erika Leckington, director of the Tallahassee-Leon Community Animal Service Center. "The challenge inspired us to look beyond traditional methods of engaging residents about the plight of pet overpopulation. The animals who are in loving homes today are a testament to our ability to creatively promote the cause."

During the $100K Challenge, contestants across the country worked to save at least 300 more animals--during the months of August, September, and October 2010--than they did during the same period in 2009.

It has long been a priority of the ASPCA to create a country of humane communities--where there is no more euthanasia of homeless animals simply because of a lack of space or the resources to adequately care for them. The ASPCA's $100K Challenge hopes to build on that work by inspiring shelters and their communities to innovate and act to save more lives.

For more information about the ASPCA's $100K Challenge, please visit www.aspcapro.org/challenge.