Athens Area Humane Society of Clarke County and Spca Inc.

The Athens Area Humane Society rescues and protects companion animals by providing for their wellbeing, uniting them with loving homes, and advocating for a compassionate society.

We envision a society where all dogs and cats have a loving home and the bond between pets and peopl

Goal One: Reduce vulnerability to economic crises by growing, diversifying, and stabilizing revenue streams.

Goal Two: Position AAHS as a destination of choice for volunteers seeking to amplify professional impact, expand networks, and strengthen community bonds.

Goal Three: Take an active, visible leadership role — grounded in AAHS’s experience and expertise — in issues related to the relationship between people and pets.

Our lead team staff have been actively engaging in development activities pertaining to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). We have reached out to and spoken with the University of Georgia’s Office of Institutional Diversity about training sessions for our board, lead team, and overall organization so that we can provide an inclusive environment to everyone who walks through our doors and crosses our paths. AAHS wants to be a positive and nurturing environment for both pets and their people so we are actively investing our time and resources into learning all that we can to achieve this.

We partner with organizations like the ASPCA and Subaru who advocate for animal welfare both locally and nationally. We participate in and offer our utility van for routine transports of pets to other states to prevent overpopulation and euthanasia. We have recently started presenting at other local organizations on the importance of spay/neuter and animal welfare. We use our social media as a platform to get pets adopted and educate our community about our mission and its importance. We invite all to the table when it comes to the big conversations about animal welfare to ensure everyone in our community feels heard. We also train staff and volunteers on the importance of caring for and training pets as well as providing them with a clean and stable environment so that they may go out in the community to share this information further.

Upon reopening to the public, the Athens Area Humane Society had to make serious changes to daily operations because of the external changes going on in the world. These changes included appointment-only adoptions, virtual volunteer orientation, virtual foster orientation, and drive-up services for spay/neuter & wellness visits. At first, all of these changes severely limited our capacity to serve our community in the way we once had. However, our staff remained optimistic and came to work with a positive outlook each day. While tasks that once took a matter of seconds turned into minutes, they did their best to keep up the momentum and get the job done! Upon moving to a larger facility, AAHS has been able to ramp up adoption by offering walk-ins again and allowing for more volunteer opportunities on-site. We have also started planning for future instances where external forces may cause changes to our organization to see what we can preemptively plan for, so there isn't a need for a mad rush to figure logistics out or a mass shutdown of services. All-in-all, if this past year has taught AAHS anything, it is that planning is the key to success when faced with extenuating circumstances out of our control.