|
Article by Barbara Kirkwood and Judith Anderson
San Pancho had its Spring Spay/Neuter Clinic May 11-14th, and it was a huge success. Starting in early February, many local Mexican families were asking when we were planning the next clinic. While the clinics have been on-going for over 13 years, this was the first time we had an indication of how many local Mexicans saw their value. All of us 
who have been involved in these clinics remember going door-to-door begging people to allow us to sterilize their pets. It has been a struggle and has taken a lot of years to educate this community as to why sterilization is important, but it looked like our efforts were finally paying off.
In early April the committee got together to talk about a Spring
Clinic, even though we knew there wasn't enough money in the fund to
pull it off. Although the clinic is free to the people of San Pancho,
that doesn't mean there aren't lots of costs involved. After years of
experience we now know that, in spite of all the generous non-cash
donations (housing for the vets, laundry service, food, materials), it
still takes about $2,000 USD to put on a clinic. $2,000 USD might seem
like a lot of money, but when you consider that we, on average,
sterilize 75 animals per clinic, that works out to less than $27 USD per
surgery. The $2,000 for each clinic doesn't cover all the "extras"
people donate to the cause. We have received generous donations of
housing for the vets while they are in San Pancho, restaurant
donations of meals for the vets, and, in the past, some wonderful  
people volunteered to do the mounds of laundry we accumulate each
day. Other people have stepped up and brought us breakfast, mid-day
snacks, soft drinks, and lunches. And of course, lots of good people
donate their time.
$1500 of the $2,000 goes directly to PEACE - the nonprofit organization who provides the vets and most of the drugs and equipment. That money barely covers their costs for medicines and salaries for the veterinarians. We still spend money on lots of extras, like copies of "after surgery care sheets" for each animal, cleaning supplies, rent for the use of the Grandes facility, flea and tick medicine, and many other things too numerous to list here.
After all expenses have been paid, if there is anything left in the fund, we use that money to assist animals who are sick or hurt or who need spay/neuter work between clinics.
At the end of April, with a $200 USD donation from a friend in San Jose,
CA, and about $160 USD left over in the spay/neuter fund, we began to
plan the last clinic. Some restaurants who had never helped us in the
past saw us hustling to get the clinic off the ground and stepped up
and offered dinners for the vets (and committed to doing it again forthe next clinic). That was a huge help, as most of our North American volunteers had already left for the summer. After an article was published in La Voz de San Pancho, donations started coming in by Paypal and by check. Some homeowners asked their property managers to track us down and bring us donations. Each day a local would walk up to one of us on the street and press $100 pesos in our hands and thank us for keeping the streets of San Pancho clear of sick and unwanted  animals. Without this community effort, we would not have been able to do the last clinic.
Our next hurdle was finding volunteers. During a clinic, we use volunteers to transport animals back to their homes, clean instruments between surgeries, keep the facility clean, sterilize cages between uses, work in recovery, and runners to go buy whatever extra drugs and supplies that are needed. While there were hardly any North Americans here to volunteer, those that were here came and worked long hours all four days. In addition, we got a big surprise when several children showed up to volunteer. These kids worked like troopers - assembling cages, cleaning bathrooms and moving furniture during set up day, and cleaning and lining cages non-stop during the four days of the clinic. They were amazing! Volunteers from Lo De Marcos and La Penita heard we needed help and showed up to assist in recovery.
All in all, this community project was a success, and we ended the clinic tired but happy that we're beginning to see support for this program from both North Americans and locals. The people of San Pancho are beginning to understand that keeping our animal population healthy and manageable makes for a nicer pueblo for San Pancho residents and more welcoming for tourists who come and support our businesses.
We sincerely thank everyone who donated in any way to the clinic. We need to start working on donations for the Fall clinic now. If you would like to join us in this worthwhile work, please write to us and ask how you can help at San_pancho_spay_neuter@hotmail.com
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals." Gandhi
| 
San Pancho Life Newsletter
generously provided by Nancy Brown and Skip Weldon and we are very, very grateful and thankful for all that they have done! This year they have guests staying at their house and we need to find a new place to hold our classes. WE NEED A SWIMMING POOL! 
see the bird while it´s making the call, in this way you can look on a field guide or ask someone knowledgeable about possible species, this is not always the case since some birds don´t show up but OMG they call and sing; b) you must be able to memorize the call and in such case imitate the bird or write the voice`s approximate "meaning" in order, again, to ask google, a field-guide orthe bird-person of your area; 3) record a video of the call, even if it doesn´t show the bird to then do your search. 
