CHAMPION - A proposed $6 million Animal Welfare Care & Education Center next to the Trumbull Career and Technical Center not only would be a boon to stray animals, it also would encourage training programs to attract new veterinarians to the area.
A fundraising campaign is set to begin for the state-of-the-art center that would use totally "green" technology, a group proposing the clinic announced Wednesday morning.
"We need to replace the Animal Welfare League's current location because it is in bad condition, is too small for our current needs, its cement floor is cracked and we have to worry about disease being spread around when contagious animals come in," Caryn Covelli, one of the people spearheading fundraising, said. ''We constantly have to turn animals away because there is no room."
The current center at 545 Brunstetter Road S.W. in Lordstown is more than 25 years old and can hold up to 100 animals.
"We also have the Howland pound," she said. "We are having some dogs taken there adopted, but most are being put down."
The new center would be a 24,500-square-foot facility that would hold up to 250 animals.
Under the proposal, the Trumbull County Dog Shelter would work in the same facility as the volunteer Animal Welfare League. It would serve as a place where stray and abandoned animals will be treated, housed and placed for adoption, as well as an educational facility for those interested in veterinary medicine.
The facility would provide a full-service veterinary clinic with exam rooms, surgery and a lab.
Dr. Rufus Sparks, a veterinarian with Town and Country Veterinarian Hospital, said, "We will be working with TCTC to expand an Animal Management Technology program that will allow its high school students to learn to work with animals," Sparks said. "What we have to offer the kids is unreal.
"The students learn about the care of animals, including teeth cleaning and animal grooming," he said.
"We will be a part of an existing TCTC program,'' Sparks said. "They need far more floor space."
The group is talking to Kent State University Trumbull Campus officials about beginning a veterinarian technician program in which students would work with local veterinarians. Having a technician program in Trumbull County would help area veterinarian office because it is difficult to attract licensed veterinarian technician to move into the area, Sparks said.
Covelli, Sparks and Charles Bentz, chairman of the Bentz Group, a national fundraising company based in Warren, are heading the private-public fundraising campaign to raise the money to build the clinic and shelter by 2011.
Estimated construction cost is $4.7 million, plus an additional $200,000 for features that will make it energy efficient. It would cost another $600,000 for professional services and materials.
The group is pushing the campaign now because federal stimulus money is available.
"We've talked to every local political leader in the area and they all seem to be on board with the idea," Covelli said. "They would love to have this happen because they are inundated with calls about stray animals."
Trumbull County commissioners agreed to lease about five acres of land for the project site for $1 a year.
"If they raise enough money to make this successful, our participation would include having some of our dog licensing fees going to the facility," Commissioner Frank Fuda said. "It would be great for all of our stray animals."
It would be one of the first totally green technology animal shelters in the nation, planners said. The building will use a fraction of the energy to operate because it will maximize the use of solar, geothermal and other energy-saving technologies in its construction.
"It will capture and use rain water for cleaning and other purposes," Sparks said. "It will use geothermal technologies to heat and cool the building during the winter and summer months, and it will use solar panels to provide electric power."
Trumbull County's Animal Welfare was incorporated in 1971 and established in 1984. It provides an adoption center, cruelty and neglect investigations, a lost-and-found center, rescue services, an inmate training program and low-cost veterinarian services.
