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| © Meredith Hines |
Cash or credit? Can I have your zip code? Do you have a discount card? Would you like to sign up for our credit card and save 10 percent today? Would you like to donate your shoebox to the animal shelter?
Come again?
Would you like to donate your shoebox to help the cats at the Peninsula SPCA?
The questions asked at most cash registers across America are so programmed, so robotic that we could answer them in our sleep. The process of purchasing something in this country is usually about as exciting and humanizing as running on a treadmill set at three miles an hour.
But at the Payless ShoeSource in Patrick Henry Mall in Newport News, Virginia, the addition of the shoebox question has added a feeling of community to the retail routine. Customers don’t just walk away with a new pair of shoes; they take a new awareness of the local shelter, along with the satisfaction of knowing they contributed, even if in a small way, to the comfort of cats in need of homes.
Knowing that one man’s trash is usually every cat’s treasure, many shelters appeal to retailers for items that might otherwise be thrown away: soda can flats for litter boxes, for instance, or carpet samples for resting spots. But with the help of her local Payless store, volunteer Meredith Hines at the Peninsula SPCA found a way to get the customer involved in the donation, too.
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| © Meredith Hines |
By hanging signs on the cash register with photos of shelter kitties chilling in the shoeboxes and a message that reads, “Thank you for our shoeboxes! –SPCA Cats,” Hines garners attention for the shelter from unsuspecting shoppers.
“I think it casts us in a better light,” says Hines. “Because we have to euthanize, a lot of times people look down on our shelter. And instead they see how much effort we’re putting into just even the daily comforts of the animals when they stay, and I think that makes people a little more softhearted about the whole issue.”
Sometimes children see the signs and say, “Mommy, let’s go to the SPCA!” or “That cat looks like Fuzzy!” Other times they say, “Mommy, let’s donate our box!”
“Everybody thinks it’s so adorable and they say, ‘That’s such a good idea; I wish I’d thought of that!’ ” says Joleen Jenkins, the store manager. “And a lot of people who would normally take their boxes leave them.”
“They’re just so happy to have done something that contributed,” adds Hines. “A lot of people want to volunteer, but they’re afraid to go in a shelter, and for them just the thought of donating a shoebox makes their day.”
Though Hines had tried adding “shoeboxes” to the shelter’s online wish list, the solicitation wasn’t bringing in enough for all the cats. After going straight to the source, Hines has managed to glean several bags full of boxes each week.
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How to Get Something for Nothing
The Payless shoebox promotion is just one of many relationships the Peninsula SPCA in Newport News has nurtured with local and online businesses. After moving last year from California to assume the position of executive director, Deborah Biggs began working with board members and volunteers to further cultivate existing partnerships and launch new programs that would bring in both extra cash and needed items. What follows are a few ideas that could be copied in any community.
Cash for Critters: The Peninsula SPCA earns $70 to $80 a month through this program, “and we still haven’t even tapped into a lot of the community,” says Biggs. Started right before Biggs came on board, the program involves sending used ink jet cartridges, laser cartridges, and digital cell phones in prepaid envelopes or collection boxes to Cash for Critters, a fundraising organization in Arizona that pays up to $2 for most ink jets, $1 to $12 for laser cartridges, and $2.50 for each cell phone. To learn more about this no-cost program, visit www.cashforcritters.com.
Pounds for Paws: Caffeine addicts can have their coffee and feel good about it, too, when they purchase a bag o’ beans from your “web cafe.” Created by Javaco Fundraising, this program is designed specifically for animal shelters. Sign up your organization at www.poundsforpaws.com, and customers will be able to order $10 one-pound coffee bags through your website; each month your shelter will receive a check for 30 percent of the sales.
Paws to Recycle: Started by the American Humane Association, this program now continues in many communities under local auspices. At the Peninsula SPCA, Biggs and her staff work with a local company that picks up all the aluminum cans brought in by supporters. “We don’t even have to take them over there because of the connection that we’ve made with that particular company,” says Biggs. “And the last time we turned them in we got $1,900.”
Uno Chicago Grill: If you have one of these pizza joints in your area, you can work with the local restaurant manager to designate a fundraising night for your organization. In Newport News, that night was May 10. Animal control officers, board members, adoption staff, employees, and volunteers passed out 2,000 coupons to citizens, coworkers, adopters, fellow church members, and anyone else who might be interested. Since Uno donates 15 to 20 percent of sales brought in by the participating organization, the Peninsula SPCA earned $371 from the night—with minimal effort.
Local jewelry and art stores: From May through July, a jewelry store donates a percentage of its sales of animal-themed pins, pendants, and other items to the Peninsula SPCA; last year the promotion garnered $800 for the shelter. A fine arts shop plans to do the same in September, giving a percentage of its sales in honor of the birthday of their founder, who was once an SPCA board member. |
“What’s really neat is when you’ve got a big old 15-pound cat that’s shoved its body into a shoebox and the sides of the shoebox are bulging out,” says Peninsula SPCA executive director Deborah Biggs. “Or if there’s a mother and kitten, they’ll be curled up together, or a couple of kittens will be in the same box.”
In her 28 years in animal protection in California and now Virginia, Biggs has seen it over and over again: cats seeking solace in their litter boxes. Hines, a former board member who also manages the SPCA’s website, also remembers when the cats would actually burrow into their dirty litter or sandwich themselves between the cage wall and the litter box.
Now, she says, 80 percent of the cats at the Peninsula SPCA shoehorn themselves into shoeboxes. Leave it to cats, the ultimate recyclers, to make luxury items from garbage. “The kittens will sometimes turn them over and play. And one time—this was my favorite, and I wish I’d gotten a picture—there was a mommy cat in the box, and there were four baby cats piled up on top of her sleeping,” says Hines. “It was like the Leaning Tower of Kittens in this box.”
The idea for making a weekly shoebox delivery came to Hines while she worked in her day job in sales and marketing. Always inundated with boxes, she’d been taking the tops off and bringing them to the shelter, but there never seemed to be enough. Now her shoebox roundups take her only 30 minutes a week and provide more than enough extra hiding/playing/napping space for kitties.
Describing Hines as an “absolutely wonderful woman who just wants to do anything she can to help the animals,” Biggs says her efforts not only help the cats adjust psychologically to the shelter environment but also elicit better responses from adopters who may have been turned off by kitty litter-box lounging.
And the photos of those shoebox kitty beds appeals to shoppers at Payless who can’t help but participate when the need is expressed so directly—“right in their face,” says Jenkins.
“I can’t believe it’s such a big deal,” she says. “It’s cool that it is a big deal, but it’s amazing because it doesn’t take any effort at all for us to do it, but yet it’s obviously making a big difference.”
