A dog available for adoption at the Upper Peninsula Animal Welfar Shelter is pictured. The shelter received a $3,300 grant from the ASPCA and Subaru, which will wave adoption fees at UPAWS on Saturday for the Share the Love Event. (Photo courtesy of UPAWS)

MARQUETTE — There are animals at the Upper Peninsula Animal Welfare Shelter waiting to be adopted and on Saturday you can take a furry friend home for free.

From noon to 5 p.m., all adoption fees will be waived with the help of a $3,300 grant from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or ASPCA, and the Fox Subaru Share the Love Shelter-Dealership Program.

Share the Love is an event through Subaru of America that donates to national and hometown charities. Through the ASPCA, Share the Love has had “a significant impact on the rescue, transport and adoption of more than 50,000 animals across the country,” according to the Subaru website.

“Subaru and our local Fox Subaru Marquette dealership have been wonderful partners for many many years,” said UPAWS Community Outreach and Volunteer Coordinator Ann Brownell.

UPAWS is looking forward to finding loving homes for many of their animals during the event, Brownell said.

“This year we have been very inundated with lots of cats and lots of dogs and lots of little critters, and we need to find them loving homes and this is a great opportunity for someone to come in adopt a pet — it’ll be paid for by Subaru and ASPCA — and bring home a loving family member,” Brownell said. “Then maybe you can go out and get some extra goodies with the money that you save on the adoption fee, some extra things for that pet, and it’s a great opportunity to find a loving family member for your home.”

The shelter is grateful for the community’s continued support and encourages those who are unable to make it to the event or those who aren’t ready to adopt a pet just yet to share the event “Share the Love Free Pet Adoption Event” on Facebook to help animals find forever homes.

“It’s all about the animals, bottom line, all about the animals. And we are very passionate to find them loving homes and to get them into nice families,” Brownell said. “They don’t ask to be homeless, so it’s our job to help them out and get them into homes.”

And there will be a furry friend available for every pet lover out there.

“We have a lot of variety of dogs and they’ll be even more available Saturday,” Brownell said. “Lots of cats; we’ll have some kittens, but in the little critter department we have bunnies galore. If you’re in the market for a guinea pig, maybe for your classroom with school coming up, we have guinea pigs and we have a lot of baby pet fancy rats, and they’re only 1 month old and they’re really cute, and rats are very smart and very clean and nice little pets.”

The free adoption event will take place at the new UPAWS facility located at 815 S. M-553 in Sands Township.

For more information on the event, call 906-475-6661, email info@upaws.org or visit upaws.org.

Trinity Carey can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 206.