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By Mary Ellen Eldridge

The Natchez-Adams County Humane Society has an exciting announcement to make! We are expanding our facility to include an outdoor, open-air pavilion. This pavilion will provide many opportunities for the public to interact with our orphans.

As a “no kill” facility, our shelter constantly remains at full capacity, and being able to interact in the open will make it easier than ever for our orphans to find their “furever” homes.

The pavilion will be in a central location on the NACHS campus. We have plans to use it for adoptions, bath days, celebrations, and fundraisers. Water and electricity are also currently available at the site, making the cost of this expansion minimal.

The shelter already has a fundraiser in place to help fund the pavilion. It is the “Paved with Love” fundraiser, currently featured in our monthly newsletter. If you have not heard about it, this fundraiser makes it easy for you to help by purchasing a brick — or bricks —  to be inscribed memorializing or honoring loved ones, friends, family pets, organizations or anything you wish to recognize.

After the 100-brick minimum has been ordered, they will be created and sent to the shelter. These bricks will be installed in the pavilion area.

Please go to brickmarkersusa.com/donors/nachs.html to purchase bricks, or you may print out the order form and mail it with your payment to us at NACHS, P.O. Box 549, Natchez, MS 39121. Order forms will also be available at the shelter.

Please note that miniature replicas of your inscribed bricks are available for purchase as well — for gift giving or a personal memento.

Speaking of fundraising, our monthly bank draft donation program was terminated during the COVID-19 lockdown to help our donors that may have been quarantined and experienced a loss of income.

Now that things are beginning to return to normal, we would like to reinstate our monthly bank drafts. If you were a part of this, we will need your permission to reinstate you. If you wish to become a monthly donor through bank draft, we need you to fill out the necessary form. Please visit the donations section of our website (nachs.org/donations) and print off the “NACHS ACH Debit for donations” form, fill it out, and mail it to our P.O. Box listed above.

We also have a PayPal account if for some reason you should want to donate that way.  You can set up monthly donations or give a one-time donation when it is convenient for you.

Please remember, we also rely on volunteers for many things. If you would like to volunteer your talents, we would be most grateful. We need volunteers to help spruce up the landscaping, walk dogs, interact with our cats and kittens, fold towels, etc. If you have a spare hour or two and would like to volunteer, please call 601-442-4001 or drop by the shelter, located at 475 Liberty Road, Natchez, MS 39120.

Our “no kill” facility could not exist without the help and participation of our generous donors. We thank you all for everything you do; it keeps our shelter operating and our orphans happy and healthy.

Mary Ellen Eldridge is a board member of the Natchez-Adams County Humane Society.