Volunteers banded together this week at the McLeese Lake Recreation Centre to lovingly create handmade beds for 46 neglected puppies and dogs that were seized by the BC SPCA from a rural property north of Williams Lake.
Gale Lamothe says they had worked Wednesday and Thursday for a total of 13 hours cutting and sewing 12 miles of fabric to assemble 50 beds.
“It was just terrible and I think in a situation like that when people are so emotional and upset, the best thing to do is to give them a job and a purpose. That’s what we did,” says Lamothe.
“We had people locally from McLeese Lake and area, we had people from Williams Lake, we had people from 150 Mile House, and I believe Lac Hache. We even had an old retired truck driving buddy who’s 70 and he came and joined us too.”
Lamothe with volunteer head seamstress Audrey Sayewich will be leaving early Monday morning to deliver the beds to Kelowna.
“Hopefully we’ll pick up a truckload of donations and a trailer load if necessary all along the way,” she says.
“Kelowna will do a transfer for us to Penticton to the dogs that are at their facility.”
Lamothe says those wanting to donate can contact her through Facebook.
The dogs according to BC SPCA General Manager of Communications, Lorie Chortyk are in very rough shape psychologically but she says that their staff are doing everything they can through medication and behavior modification to help their rehabilitation.
“There was pretty big talk in the production line about doing this again so I can see it happening in the very near future all over again,” says Lamothe.
“We have more fabric and it’s all about the dogs. We just want to do absolutely everything we can to show them some love and compassion.”