The Capital Humane Society’s new location is weeks away from opening, and a generous grant will push it over the finish line.
PetSmart Charities has committed $150,000 to support the opening of Stransky Veterinary Center located near 55th and O Street through the “Accelerator” low-cost veterinary care grant program, dedicated to support the expansion of low-cost veterinary care by funding growth and operations for nonprofit clinics looking to expand their services.
The grant is to help improve accessibility for pet owners to affordable veterinary care, and that’s the purpose of the Stransky Veterinary Center location,” said Executive Director Matt Madcharo, “We’re very grateful to PetSmart Charities to help us out, help the new center get off the ground, and get it open to the public.”
The anticipated impact on local pets and families includes aiming to make preventative veterinary care and spay/neuter services affordable and easily accessible to everyone in our community. Madcharo said the grand opening of the Stransky Center is right around the corner, expected for early to mid March.
The new center will help alleviate a growing issue in the Lincoln community, according to Madcharo.
“2023 was the most dogs that have come through the doors of Capital Humane since 2013. If you put the intake of dogs on a graph, from 2013 to 2023, its literally is a ‘V,'” Madcharo described, “Intake steadily declined into 2020, bottomed out, and now has rapidly returned to the levels of intake that we were seeing 10+ years ago. There’s a need to get more pets spayed and neutered in the community, as well as affordable veterinary care.”
The Stransky Veterinary Center will primarily be used to spay/neuter and provide preventative veterinary care, such as vaccinations, deworming, flea/tick prevention, microchips, etc. “It’ll be affordable for everybody, regardless of their income,” said Madcharo. The Humane Society’s ‘Pawsitive Impact Project,’ providing preventative care for income qualified pet owners, will be relocating to the new center.
“At the end of the day, we need to get more pets spade and neutered in this community. We want to make it affordable for everybody so that financial challenges don’t prevent people from getting their pets the acre their pets need,” said Madcharo.
Additionally, the new center will be in a more prime location closer to the heart of Lincoln on 55th and O Street.
“We’re hopeful the new center will be more accessible for more people, especially those in North Lincoln, so they don’t have to come all the way to our other location near 16th and South,” Madcharo said, “Ultimately, it’s a long range game also. Once we get it open and get those pets spaded/neutered, hopefully we’ll see a reduction in the number of pets coming through our doors with less accidental or unwanted litters of puppies and kittens. Our hope is, over the next few years, we will start to see the benefits that the Stransky Veterinary center is able to provide.”