It takes All Kinds: Group moving forward with fundraising, plans for … – Abilene Reporter-News

Andrea Robison recalls her first visit to the Abilene Animal Shelter, not long after her dog, Hobbes, her beloved pet of 14 years, died during the pandemic.
“We waited a little while, and then we went up there to adopt a new family member,” she said.
That visit was a “traumatic experience,” she said.
“My first thought was, ‘I will never set foot in here again,'” she said.
Though she did adopt Sprocket, a white lab/German shepherd mix now 2, she knew that her new friend was only one of many waiting for a new home.
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“I was kind of haunted by the ones that were still there,” she said.
Fast forward, and Robison decided there likely were other people in town who wanted change, which sent her “down the rabbit hole that is animal welfare here in Abilene.”
“I was able to find some really amazing, like-minded people,” she said.
Now, All Kind Animal Initiative, the result of that dream, stands poised to help fund and manage a new animal shelter for the city of Abilene.
The group is gathering money for the shelter project and will assume management duties in the new year.
One of its primary goals, Robison said, now All Kind’s board president, is to create a sense of harmony about the shelter and its operations, which have been divisive among residents for many years.
“We just really hope this can be something that unifies the community,” she said. “There has been so much negative discourse, and for good reason. It’s been a horrible situation (at the current shelter) for so long. One of the things that we just really hope is that the community will stand behind us, support us and give us a chance to make a difference.”
So far, the group has collected about $7.25 million in commitments to help fund the project, including a $4 million commitment from the city of Abilene, Robison said.
The estimated price tag for the shelter project is about $9.5 million, she said.
The group spent about six months working with architect Tim Rice McClarty to bring costs down, Robison said.
The original design for the shelter, presented to the council in February 2020 at $10.6 million, would have been more like $12 million-14 million in today’s dollars, City Manager Robert Hanna said, especially given inflationary pressure on construction costs.
“We want the community to feel like we are being good stewards with the support that they’re entrusting to us for this project,” Robison said. “But at the same time, not anywhere are we sacrificing the quality of care that the facility can provide.”
Hanna said the city also has purchased land for the shelter at 610 East South 11th Street at a cost of $1.5 million.
In addition, it’s anticipated the city will provide in-kind construction service for water and sewer to the development tract with contractor, connecting them to the building.
“This won’t be a large cost, but it will be an added cost,” Hanna said.
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One of the major battles the group faces, Robison said, is that the current facility, built in the 1950s, is “fighting against us to care for these animals.”
The state of the city’s current shelter has long been a discussion topic.
During a 2015 bond initiative, the facility was among projects given serious consideration, but ultimately dropped from the list.
In 2020, the council looked at plans for a new shelter, with some speculation about building near the zoo in east Abilene.
Some council members worried at the time the project had too hefty a price tag, though all agreed the almost 50-year-old facility at 925 South 25th St. was in need of updating.
Moisture issues, temperature control, falling plaster, structural issues and visible patches of black mold, noise issues and general sanitation were listed as concerns.
At a council retreat in 2021, Hanna said the project possibly could be funded via a bond election, though he, Mayor Anthony Williams and others said community help might reduce costs.
Williams, in particular, said discussion was necessary to determine whether another entity could administrate a shelter and possibly “do a better job than the city,” similar to the way the city owns, but does not administer, its transit system.
“That was the first part of this conversation: What what would this look like if we privatized the project?” Robison said.
A public-private partnership seemed a good way to get things done, she said.
“Ultimately, it’s not about whose project this is, it’s about how we bring this into fruition,” Robison said.
Hanna said the group has, so far, “done a good job of raising funds,” though he acknowledged that sometimes the final push for a fundraising project can be the most difficult period.
“I think it’s really important we reiterate the fact that we need a new animal shelter,” he said. “… We could put all the money we want in that facility, and it’s just not going to be able to do what this new facility can do because it’s just not designed that way originally.”
The current shelter was designed in a time when “animal services just didn’t function the way we try to function now,” Hanna said.
“And the structure itself isn’t capable of doing what we need to do not from an animal health, safety and care standpoint,” he said.
Hanna said in initial conversations with the group he admitted the city might have “gilded the lily” a bit in its initial design work.
“In the past, we have partnered with with folks to help do some value engineering to get a project that was buildable,” he said. “So we talked about All Kind performing that role, and they agreed to do it. And that was really the start of their shelter concept.”
What has emerged isn’t just a building, but a campus, Robison said, built on about 7.5 acres off of South 11th street.
“There’s an additional five acres of just green space out there we can tie into, but 7.5 acres of buildable land,” she said.
The campus as a whole is known as the the Pet Adoption and Resource Center, aka “The Parc.”
Its main building has a “cat corridor,” not just a single room but a facility designed with “cat condos” with separate litter boxes, an indoor cat play area with towers and scratchable walls and an outdoor “cat enrichment” area – the “catio” – basically a screened-in porch area.
“They won’t ever see a dog,” Robison said. “They’ll really be separated visually and with sound. They’re not being affronted with the noise of barking and that kind of thing that really raises their stress level.”
Also in the main building are offices, with facilities for community education, workshops and training.
“And then, we’re really proud of the fact that it will have a full veterinary suite,” Robison said, allowing better medical assessment when animals to come in and the capacity to spay/neuter every single dog and cat before it leaves the facility.
That helps address the long-term problem of limiting the number of animals that are in the facility at any one time, she said.
The rest of the campus includes separate buildings for general population dogs, with each kennel having an indoor and outdoor run.
The separate design helps control outbreaks of illnesses, Robison said.
“It’s not impacting your entire population,” she said, allowing the opportunity to focus on addressing the care of animals in a single building. “… You can really focus on addressing the care of animals in that building.”
Add in play yards and park spaces so that people interested in adopted can get a dog out and interact with them and volunteers, and you have the PARC.
The shelter, Robison said, arguably needed to have been built “yesterday,” or even decades ago.
Right now, the goal is to have all needed commitments and pledges by the end of the year, or early in 2023.
“We would be able to break ground as early as January,” Robison said. “That’s still our goal, and we’ll see if we can get there.”
From that point, it’s about an 18-month build to completion, she said.
“We’re really proud of the work that we’ve done and the support that we’ve gotten from the city of Abilene. They definitely jump-started this whole thing with their their commitment,” Robison said.
But there’s plenty of chances for those interested in supporting the project to, if they want, literally put their stamp on it − or at least, on a brick, a bench, a play yard or even an individual kennel.
“We have naming opportunities throughout this entire facility, inside and out,” she said. “What we would love to see is this whole facility covered in the names of our community members that support this project.”
The group’s trek from wanting to help build a new facility to moving into management has been “quite an interesting journey,” Robison said.
The city has in the recent past struggled to run the facility, she said, losing several directors in a row.
“We wanted to make sure that (the shelter is) being well cared for and run the way that we really envisioned,” Robison said.
The group has spent a great of time in the past six months looking at other organizations around the country that have gone down the same path, Robison said.
“(It’s) important that people understand we are not pioneers here,” she said. “This is a model that a lot of municipal governments are really starting to implement around the country, where they outsource animal services to nonprofits that can implement different standards.”
The entity will take over the management role Jan. 1, and is “cautiously optimistic” about the changes it will try to implement, Robison said.
“I know there will be a learning curve, and it’s not going to be smooth or perfect,” she said. “But it’s really hoped that the community can can stand behind us and support us to try to make things better.”
The city will continue to run animal control services, while the money it normally would allocate toward its own animal services department will now go to All Kind.
Existing staff have the option of coming to work for All Kind, or going to work for a different city department.
One-on-one staff meetings have been had, with the goal of explaining to current employees about what it’s like to work for a nonprofit entity that is “very much boots on the ground,” Robison said.
“We really want to bring a lot of new people in to the organization and into the shelter, just to provide more support,” Robison said. “It’s a massive undertaking to run that place and provide care for that many animals. And we need significantly more hands and more people, more staff to do that.”
And the group wants to better take care of animals by better taking care of its people, she said.
“It will be a big change,” Robison said. “And I don’t know that everyone is going to be coming over. I don’t know that everyone that has been working here is coming over to all kinds, but we do believe that the ones that really do care about the animals and want to make a difference and have some exciting new opportunities.”
Hanna said members of All Kind have been volunteering at the current shelter now for a number of years now and have “really kind of become auxiliary staff in some ways.”
“So, I think it’s a natural progression to have All Kind be the animal shelter manager for the city of Abilene,” he said.
In the event the group somehow doesn’t perform, an occurrence Hanna doubts, there are options.
“We’re also thinking about this concept of creating a local government corporation similar to the hotel to just provide another level of public oversight for the public’s animal shelter and assign that contract,” he said. “The LGC would then own the building. … And the LGC would contract with All Kind for animal shelter management services.”
That is a couple of chess moves down the road, Hanna said.
“But I think that’s what the thing looks like at the end of the day, that’s the final kind of vision for it all,” he said. “And that would create a board that would be responsible, dedicated solely for the provision of animal services and the management in that shelter.”
All Kind’s board comes from diverse backgrounds, from those in the world of animal welfare, including those who have long volunteered at the local shelter, to those with professional backgrounds such as CPA, attorney, a veterinarian and a development officer.
It was the right collective of people at the right time, Robison said, to set about raising the bar on what animal welfare in Abilene looks like.
Robison said that she hopes those who love animals will be “rooting for us to succeed.”
“I’ve probably been putting in 40-50 hours a week the past year and a half (into All Kind), and I’m a volunteer,” she said. “… We have had so much support from the community. The people who know us, they know why we’re here. They know where our hearts are.”
Information about All Kind Animal Initiative is available at allkindabilene.org.

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