There are moments that we never forget and for me, as well as all of our friends, supporters, families and especially the animals of the Louisiana SPCA, the grand opening of our Animal Rescue and Care Center will endure as one of the forever moments.

After a difficult road of recovery and rebuilding we were able to see our vision come to life in a place where our community can find enduring companionship in our new, permanent facility designed to reestablish the best animal care services in our state.

The Animal Rescue and Care Center represents the first phase of our three phased Dorothy Dorsett Brown Louisiana SPCA Campus. Our first phase and subsequent phases, Phase II: the Adoption, Education & Veterinary Center and Phase III: the Agility Center, are paved due to the supporters and contributors like you. Only with your support can our dreams become a reality.

Thank you to our family - our staff and volunteers and donors - who pour their heart, soul, talent and energies to help build a better life for the animals we care.

Woof,

After 17 months operating a full-scale animal shelter out of a temporary, makeshift warehouse, the Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (LA/SPCA) unveiled a 21,600 square-foot animal rescue and care facility that is being hailed by colleagues nationwide as a major triumph of recovery from one of the country's largest natural disasters, after the organization lost its shelter, 80% of its staff and its entire infrastructure in Hurricane Katrina.

Meet Allison Raynor, affectionately known as Alli by friends and colleagues, a long-time LA/SPCA volunteer and a member of the LA/SPCA Capital Campaign Committee. Alli is working behind the scenes to help realize the Dorothy Dorsett Brown Louisiana SPCA Campus to its complete vision. As we embark on a new journey with the recent opening of the Animal Rescue and Care Center (ARCC), we are so thankful for the people who believe in our mission and support the work we do; people like Alli.

Define someone as an animal lover or advocate, and you may mistakenly think you are armed with all there is to know about such a person. Yet not unlike the varied creatures great and small they care for, you will find an array of individuals whose souls and personalities are as diverse as the Siamese cat, the Corgi mix, the Pit Bull puppy, the black Lab or the orange tabby whose lives they touch. Likewise there are those who have made a career out of their affection, and others who do so as volunteers and community beacons.

Alli Raynor is one such beacon of light whose path took her by chance to Japonica Street, the location of the LA/SPCA shelter before it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, over thirteen years ago.

[Editor's Note: Working and volunteering in an animal shelter is one of highs and lows. Published writer and LA/SPCA volunteer Susie Folkes shares a candid piece on the lows and ultimately the highs that come with giving your life and time to help shelter animals find a home and the love they so deserve. Seeing adoptions happen and not happen is an emotional rollercoaster ride that takes place in shelters and humane organizations everyday all across the country. But because of all those who have been adopted there remains, as Susie writes, "a carnival of optimism."]

One Saturday about two months ago, my friend Barbara and I stood by the front exercise yard watching one of our LA/SPCA dogs, Jerry, a goofy, bedraggled terrier mix, play with a rope toy. We'd just come back from an off-site adoption event and watching Jerry hop about comically in the breezy outdoors was a pleasant way to decompress after a long emotional day. Off-site adoption days are always full of highs and lows, one second we're thrilled to see a dog march off with his new family, and the next, distraught at the thought of returning to the shelter with dogs who weren't so lucky. During those four hours that the dogs get to puppy bow and romp with each other, walk around a pet store or a neighborhood block, we indulge too much in the fantasy that they are, well, just like any other dog. Then the kennel doors close and jolt all of us back to reality.