Written by Taylor Gilmour
Tracy Donahue, foster volunteer at the Humane Society of the Treasure Coast, has been recognized as one of 22 National Foster Heroes by the Petco Foundation and Skechers’ charity footwear collection, BOBS from Skechers in celebration of National Foster a Pet Month in June.
Tracy Donahue and her two children Liam and Haleigh have been dedicated fosters and volunteers at the Humane Society of the Treasure Coast for nearly 15 years. Tracy specializes in bottle feeding newborn kittens and has since fostered over 250 kittens! Her children helped her foster journey by assisting with caring for the cats since they were elementary age. They are off to college now and still share her passion for animals. In the past 4 years, Tracy and her children volunteered nearly 900 hours collectively as cashiers at our thrift store.
Tracy says, “my children and I have adored each little precious life that we were able to help along to their forever homes. It was an invaluable learning and loving experience for our family. We will cherish all the extraordinary memories made being a foster family.”
“Tracy and her children have been an invaluable asset to our volunteer and foster teams," says Sarah Fisher, HSTC volunteer program manager. "Who could ever have imagined the impact she and her family would make on our shelter. Yet hundreds of successful fosters and thousands of volunteer hours later, Tracy continues to make a huge difference in the animal welfare world."
For stepping up and saving animal lives along the Treasure Coast, Tracy will receive a prize pack including BOBS from Skechers shoes and their incredible lifesaving work will be honored along with their National Foster Hero peers on petcofoundation.org.
“It is an honor to recognize the Local Foster Heroes who are making a difference in their communities and demonstrating the lifesaving impact of fostering pets,” said Susanne Kogut, president of the Petco Foundation. “During the response to the COVID-19 crisis, we saw a significant spike in the number of people fostering pets. Our goal is to continue this trend, inspire more people to join the pet fostering movement and make pets sheltering in foster homes, versus animal shelters, the new normal. Because, if less than 2 percent of pet-owning households in the U.S. fostered one pet a year, we could eliminate unnecessary euthanasia in animal shelters tomorrow.”
National Foster a Pet Month is part of the Petco Foundation’s Pledge to Save Pet Lives which encourages animal lovers to adopt, foster, volunteer and/or donate this summer with a goal of inspiring 1.5 million pledges to match the approximate number of pets unnecessarily euthanized in shelters each year in the U.S.