The Rotary Club of Buckhead selected LifeLine Animal Project as one of its three-year signature projects, expanding community support efforts to address shelter overcrowding. Their work with LifeLine focuses on much more than promoting pet adoption. Here are three stories of our work:

Fighting Food Insecurity

The Rotary Club, LifeLine and Open Hand Atlanta have joined forces to fight food insecurity in a new way: by feeding both people and their pets. In the first month of this ongoing effort, Rotary volunteers delivered 53 bags of free dog and cat food to 30 families, along with 200 meals, 10 baskets of healthy groceries, and 10 packages of nutritional supplements for an additional 30 families.  

Club President Shelley Hammell launched the initiative recognizing that feeding and caring for a pet can cost over $30,000 over its lifetime, an expense that can force some owners to skip meals or give up their pets, causing shelter overcrowding. Partnering with Open Hand, which already delivers nutritious meals, made it a natural fit to include pet food to help address food insecurity for both people and their pets.

LifeLine provided the pet food and joined in the deliveries alongside Buckhead Rotarians. This monthly effort helps keep people and their pets together, recognizing that pets play a vital role in their owners’ mental and emotional well-being.

Keeping Pets with Their People

Buckhead Rotary partnered with LifeLine to help provide access to pet care through their Healthy Pets event, promoting pet health, supporting families, and preventing surrenders due to unaffordable veterinary care. A dedicated group of Buckhead Rotarians volunteered at Wade Walker Park in Stone Mountain, GA, assisting attendees in the “happy dog” line with paperwork so their pets could receive vital veterinary services—completely free of charge. Nearly 1,300 pets and their owners were seen by onsite veterinarians for services including:

• 625 Microchips
• 789 Distemper Vaccines
• 349 FVRCP Vaccines
• 1040 Rabies Vaccines
• 831 Spay Neutering Vouchers

The event was educational for Buckhead Rotarians who learned how to spell Shith Tzu and Chihuahua and got to interact with the four-legged attendees. This was a huge success with 160 volunteers and Buckhead Rotary was proud to be part of it. Buckhead Rotary will be sponsoring the spring Healthy Pet event and has committed to making this a regular event for the next three-years.

Barking Good Time for Dogs and People

Buckhead Rotary had a truly rewarding time partnering with LifeLine Animal Project to help increase visibility for pet adoption and ease shelter overcrowding. This joint effort between Buckhead Rotary and LifeLine was made so much easier thanks to the support of the North Atlanta High School Interact Club, who teamed up with us to wave down cars and engage with the interested families. 

Thanks to everyone’s support, 38 interested families came through to explore pet adoption. We are excited for our furry friends to find their fur-ever homes! A huge thank you to our Interact Club for lending a helping paw in making this event a success. Thank you to our GRSP student, Dani Bergamo and our RYE student Leo Klein-Kraneberg for volunteering at the event! 

After our hard work, we followed up with a Bark-A-Que for all Rotarians and their guests, four legged friends were included. We enjoyed a balmy afternoon under a spacious tent while sharing a delicious barbecue meal and connecting with new and old friends. It was a barking good time. Thanks to the Chastain Park Conservancy for the use of the tent and restroom facilities, much appreciated by the humans. The dogs of course preferred the trees. tary Club of Buckhead selected LifeLine Animal Project as one of its three-year signature projects, expanding community support efforts to address shelter overcrowding. Their work with LifeLine focuses on much more than promoting pet adoption.