Reva Laituri, president of the Upper Peninsula Animal Welfare Shelter, holds Ducky the cat, a shelter resident. UPAWS has had to cancel fundraisers, but still raises money for shelter operations. (Journal photo by Christie Mastric)

GWINN — Even during a pandemic, the need to keep an animal shelter financially healthy continues.

The Upper Peninsula Animal Welfare Shelter, located at 615 South M-553 in Sands Township, has managed to keep its door open in the midst of COVID-19, but it hasn’t been easy.

UPAWS President Reva Laituri said several fundraisers, such as Wash-n-Wag, had been canceled, and the Cause for Paws annual gala, which typically takes place in November, is off for this year. Its comedy night fundraiser, Raise the Woof, which usually is held in January, also will be canceled.

“Some of those were bigger events,” Laituri said.

UPAWS held Strut Your Mutt in September, but it was a virtual event instead of in-person this time. She said it’s unknown how much money that event raised since pledges still are trickling in to UPAWS.

“But I know it didn’t do what it would have done,” she said.

So the situation requires different fundraising means for UPAWS.

“I’ve tried to work harder on our direct solicitations — direct-mail asks — and been a little more creative to make them more appealing, hopefully, but basically, people have just kind of stepped up on their own, and we have gotten more donations,” Laituri said.

In fact, she said the shelter has received more donations than it normally would have gotten.

Small independent fundraisers have helped, too.

For example, Karen J. Rhodes, a UPAWS volunteer, recently received a check for UPAWS from Dr. Tim Hunt of Bayshore Veterinary Hospital in Harvey, which ran a special fundraiser for the shelter.

She said Bayshore raised $788.10 for UPAWS this summer by taking advantage of social distancing. Because clients and their pets waited outside the facility in their cars for their visits, Hunt put a cooler with pop and water outdoors, along with a donation bucket for UPAWS.

Laituri said UPAWS is looking at holding fundraisers that don’t require groups of people.

For now, though, the shelter is behind in raising money through fundraisers, she said.

“We’re hanging in there,” Laituri said. “We haven’t had to go into our reserves or anything yet.”

What has helped are fewer animals at the shelter, or what she called a “reduced annual census,” although it has been picking up lately.

“That has really saved on expenses,” Laituri said.

She suspected people weren’t surrendering animals because they were staying at home to cope with the COVID-19 crisis.

“We thought we would be overrun with animals coming in, and not being able to get them out, because everything is still by appointment here, and that didn’t happen,” Laituri said. “In fact, at one point I think we had a total of nine animals, and a couple of those were in foster care.”

What also has helped save money, she said, is putting out many “wish lists” on Amazon, Facebook and on its website.

“We’ve been getting a really, really good response on that, which has helped tremendously,” Laituri said.

She acknowledged the COVID-19 situation is in flux, which presents a challenge.

“It’s a moving target all the time, and we just don’t know pretty much day to day what’s going to happen,” Laituri said. “We don’t know what’s coming in.”

She said UPAWS has been operating well through appointments, but revenue generated through activities such as nail clipping and microchipping is down.

“We still are doing that, but it’s by appointment only, so in order to keep fewer people out of the shelter, it’s affecting a lot of the revenue generating that we normally would have,” Laituri said.

Social distancing has its place at UPAWS.

“Let’s say they want to come in and look at cats,” she said. “It’s, like, one family unit or whatever at a time.”

Not being able to have three or four families at a time, then, has negative effects.

It’s anybody’s guess when life will go back to normal in a post-COVID world, but UPAWS has to face the future whether the pandemic continues or it ends.

“In planning and thinking about next year, we’re just trying to be more creative in our fundraising,” Laituri said. “We’re looking as much as possible to see what we can do online. Hopefully, we can start doing more things again. I guess it’s hoping for the best and planning for the worst. Everybody is having to do it.”

A conservative financial plan can help as well.

“We’re paying attention to every penny spent and trying to make the most of it,” Laituri said. “We’re hanging in there right now, but you don’t know how long this is going to go on or what’s going to happen.”

For more information on UPAWS, visit upaws.org. Current shelter hours are noon to 4 p.m. daily.

Christie Mastric can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 250. Her email address is cbleck@miningjournal.net.