Society for Animals in Distress celebrates 60 years of giving back to the community
BRYANSTON – The animal welfare society thanked many of their generous donors and auctioned off art pieces to raise funds for future projects.
The Society for Animals in Distress celebrated its 60th anniversary, an uncommon achievement for a charitable organisation, at Graham’s Fine Art Gallery in Bryanston.
The event was hosted for the purpose of thanking its staff and many supporters and donors. Each year the organisation provides more than 100 000 treatments to domestic animals and they aim to ensure that indigent communities have access to veterinary care and animal education.
The society was started in 1958 by Didi and Ken Rutherford, in Soweto. Since then it has shown incredible growth and is currently the single largest professional veterinary care provider in the animal welfare sector. They now have a state-of-the-art veterinary clinic, a post-graduate internship and graduate programme for Animal Health Technicians as well as an equine facility.
Martin Banner, a speaker at the event said, “These folks do incredible work, they work in the harshest conditions with people that live in extremely harsh conditions in the townships and they do an incredible job.”
Holly Doherty, the fundraising manager at the organisation said they worked 365 days a year to not only provide animals with veterinary care, including sterilisations, deworming, disease and injury treatment and vaccinations, but to educate animal owners on how to care for their animals.
Aside from the veterinary care to local communities, the organisation also runs a coal yard project which aims to reduce the number of horses in their service areas through investment in the horse owners’ skills and education.
On the evening, artists of the Little Artists Schools Project had some of their works on display to be auctioned off and sold to raise money for the artists and the society. Some of the pieces auctioned off included a large watercolour by Edward Selematsela, who founded Little Artists, and a ceramic rhino by Clement Mkhize, which sold for R10 000.
Doherty said over the years they had been fortunate enough to have many long-running individual supporters who had helped the society. She added that the fundraising celebration provided invaluable awareness about the organisation and all the work they have done, and will continue to do in the future.
Details: Society for Animals in Distress 083 643 9480.
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