Road To Rescue

The Cause

SCARS is a non-profit, registered charitable organization that is dedicated to reducing the number of homeless, injured and abandoned animals in northern Alberta. Since 2002, SCARS has rescued, rehabilitated and re-homed over 17,000 animals.

SCARS is looking to acquire a new transport vehicle to continue supporting rescue missions of unwanted, injured and neglected animals in Alberta. Many rural communities in Northern Alberta do not have the access to medical care and resources and the need for our organization's services has increased to an all-time high.

Sometimes, the only answer is yes. Despite the stress. Despite the risk. Our intake team is stretched with the overwhelming amount of requests. This is the highest number of intakes SCARS has ever seen. When RCMP and local officials, headed north to the devastated communities of Fox Lake. Remote, hard hit by merciless heat and fire, and with limited animal rescue resources, we answered their plea for help. Our small team of experienced employees and volunteers loaded up supplies and drove over 8 hours each way, to do what SCARS does best: help those animals who can not help themselves. This is only one of many examples of our organizations' passion for protecting animals and the communities we serve. We need to ensure that we have an adequate vehicle that will allow the continuation of these efforts.

Who Will it Benefit?

Animal Rescue organizations in Alberta have formed a collective and is comprised of a true formation of people who have a passion in restoring the health and safety or unwanted, sick and abused animals. We feel as an established and long-standing organization in the animal welfare community, that we have an excellent rapport with like-minded organizations and can act as a partner to aid in the intake of animals in need. We have a shared need for travel to varying locations to aid and assist in transport,
relocation and access to resources.

There are over 50 organizations that serve animals in rescue initiatives in various communities throughout Alberta. Second Chance Animal Rescue primarily serves over 50 communities in Edmonton and Northern Alberta such as Morinville, Buffalo Lake First Nation, Calling Lake, Wabasca, Athabasca, Westlock County to name a few. SCARS is predominantly a volunteer based organization with well over 200 volunteers. It is our utmost priority to keep SCARS volunteers and animals safe on the roads while they transport throughout communities with varying weather conditions. Wildfires were at an alarming rate this year in our province and we had many volunteers out in rural area's assisting families and local authorities with the evacuation of many animals. Many animals who have been reunited with their families and some who were born into our care.

Every animal is transported and given a veterinary and behavioral assessment and any medical care or rehabilitation it requires. We spay/neuter, vaccinate & microchip every animal that comes into our care.

Our Spay-Neuter-Return program provides spaying and neutering, vaccination and micro-chipping for owned pets to prevent over-population, and our Walls 4 Winter program provides communities with insulated pet shelters, in which we deliver the completed shelters built by volunteers as the seasons start to change.