The Padalecki Project, Part III

Given my spotty internet access and a slew of real-life stuff cropping up, this update has been delayed time and time again. I've been settling back in at home, but I finally managed to tap into the wireless long enough to make this post. We are finally pleased to introduce phase three of the Padalecki Project, Paws for a Cause.

We all know Jared is a canine-lover; he has two dogs, who seem to be just as adorable and huge as their owner. What better way to celebrate Jared's birthday than to give a little to the community he works in and aid in the care of animals in need of help?

We spent a long time weeding through organizations, trying to select a non-profit with a good, solid reputation and a professional infrastructure. However, most of the canine-related assocations had more to do with training guide dogs than with helping care for abused animals, and many of them seemed rather weak or dodgy. We were also looking for an organization based in a location with particular significance for Jared (Texas was an obvious first choice).

However, while scouting for possible candidates online, we stumbled across the British Columbia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. It is a highly reputable organization with offices all over British Columbia, including Vancouver, where Supernatural shoots.

"The BC SPCA is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting and enhancing the quality of life for domestic, farm and wild animals in British Columbia. Through its 36 branches located around BC and its provincial office in Vancouver, the BC SPCA provides a wide range of services for more than 53,000 homeless, abused, and abandoned animals around the province. The BC SPCA was created under the auspices of the provincial Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, and is the only animal welfare organization in BC which has the authority to enforce laws relating to animal cruelty and to prepare cases for Crown Counsel for the prosecution of individuals who inflict suffering on animals."

The great thing about this organization is that it helps a good many dogs, but also aids in the rescue and care of other animals.

In addition - and this is the real clincher - the BC SPCA does tribute donations, so you can donate in honour of a person (namely, Jared), and they send him an e-card with a personalized message. The following is the BC SPCA's description of how the tribute gift works:

"Tribute gifts are a special way to let someone know you are thinking about them, while helping the animals at the same time.

Whenever you make a gift in memory or in honour of a person or pet, the BC SPCA will send a tribute card to the person or family member to acknowledge your thoughtfulness...

We will also send cards for other occasions such as birthdays, weddings and holidays...

You will need to provide the person's or pet's name for the In Memory/Honour gift, any special message that you would like to have on the card and who the card should be signed from, the recipient's name & address, and the sender's name & address."

The email address for the cards will be padaleckipaws@gmail.com, and the recipient's address will be:

37-20-99th St. Apt. D5
Corona, NY 11368

We will include a letter with the scrapbook, explaining this part of the project and providing login information to the account.

To donate online, follow this link. The deadline for the donations will be July 13th, 2006, but we strongly urge you to do it as soon as possible. And, of course, there's no real deadline for charity; we encourage you to donate long after this project is done. Also, once you've donated, please comment here with your name and te amount you donated, so we can be sure your donation got through and can keep track of how much money has been raised (the emails to the account don't specify how much is donated on the recipient's behalf). If you don't feel comfortable sharing any of that information here, you can also email us at the same email address (padaleckipaws@gmail.com).

Note: all amounts are in Canadian funds, so go here for currency conversions.

I'd've posted earlier, which would have given us more time, but there were also a few organizational problems (the BC SPCA doesn't specify how to deal with PayPal donations, and we'd originally intended to lump the donations together). It only just dawned on me today that making individual donations would give Jared more cards and spare us the trouble of having to deal with the credit card problem. Excuse my massive brain fart.