It’s quieter than usual at the Kewanee Animal Shelter. All the animals are gone except one: dog named Bronx.
“He’s getting spoiled. He had a cheeseburger last night for supper. That doesn’t happen all the time,” said Mary Bergren, a member of the shelter’s board of directors.
Not too long ago the small shelter was brought into the spotlight because of a Thor, a puppy whose throat was slashed last summer.
Now, the new board of directors has temporarily closed the shelter to make some much-needed repairs, which they say could have been avoided with regular maintenance.
“Now we’ve got some issues that certainly have to be addressed,” Bergren said.
Last week Bergren brought a building inspector to the shelter. He said their top priorities needed to be getting new doors for the kennels and fixing the sinking east wall.
Bergren wants to get those repairs done first so the animals can come back, but there’s another part of the shelter that needs attention: the check book.
Last year the shelter ran a $20,000 deficit, according to Bergren. She said that deficit would have climbed to $45,000 had it not been for donations made to the “Thor Fund.”
It’s a shelter, but Bergren says it needs to be ran like a business.
“That’s not really the way they looked at it. So at the end of the year if they were running short then they would just have their fundraiser to try and make up the difference and that’s not a good way to run a business,” she said.
That’s means making sure special funds, like the “Thor Fund,” are spent on the projects they are supposed to and not just a part of the general fund.
Bergren said she’s not sure when the shelter will re-open. She also said the one thing the shelter does not need right now is dog food. Instead, the shelter is asking for Menards gift cards and financial donations.
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