At a time when Clinton Township-based nonprofit A ReJoyceful Animal Rescue has seen its resources stretched to the limits, its founder said its longstanding partnership with PetSmart Charities has provided crucial funding and support.

A ReJoyceful Animal Rescue was founded in 2007 and has been working with PetSmart Charities for more than a decade, founder Michelle Heyza said. The rescue takes in and rehabilitates stray, abandoned and unwanted dogs and cats — as well as the occasional guinea pig — then helps them find new homes, she said.

In 25 years of animal rescue work, Heyza said, she’s never seen more animals in need than now. To top it off, donations also are down, she said.

“It’s been really, really, really bad, and I don’t know if we’re going to pull out of this,” Heyza said. “I think it’s just going to continue to get worse.”

The simplest thing people can do to help?

Keep your pets, Heyza said. When financially needy pet owners consider surrendering their animals, A ReJoyceful Animal Rescue does what it can to help those pets stay in their homes rather than take up crucial space in a shelter or foster home. Grants from PetSmart Charities, including funds provided for each animal adoption, enable the nonprofit to help owners in need, which in turn helps ease pressure on the entire rescue system, Heyza said. PetSmart Charities also provides spay and neuter grants, which helps reduce in fighting overpopulation, she said.

“We don’t need any more animals in the rescue. We have enough,” Heyza said. “We don’t need someone surrendering their animal because they can’t afford a surgery. Instead, we’ll try to say: ‘Hey, what if we help you out with the surgery? And would you be willing to keep your pet?’ And 95% of the time, the answer is ‘Oh my God, yes.’”

Heyza pleaded for concerned residents to make donations to their local animal rescues. County shelters may be short on resources, but they do receive some government funding, she said. Local rescues subsist solely on donations, adoption fees and grants like those provided by PetSmart Charities, Heyza said. A ReJoyceful Animal Rescue is primarily foster-based, but operates a small shelter that costs about $17,000 a month to run, Heyza said.

“Donate to your local shelters, donate to your small shelters, because we survive on it,” Heyza said. “With us being here, it takes the burden and stress off of the county shelter. I don’t even know how many times we’ve gotten animals brought to us that were supposed to go to the county shelter, but we’ve taken them in instead. … We’re all here to work together as a community.”

While the rescue holds adoption events at a variety of different locations, all of their adoptions are finalized through PetSmart and new owners pick up their pets at the store, Heyza said. A Rejoyceful Animal Rescue runs the “cat condos” at the PetSmart store in Chesterfield, which she said has been a “tremendous” help with exposing cats to adopters and finding them new homes.

“I think (the partnership) has been hugely beneficial for A Rejoyceful Rescue,” Heyza said. “The fact that they give back for every single adoption that’s done through PetSmart is amazing. PetSmart is truly giving back to their community in that respect because the dollars that we get from that go right back into our community efforts.”

Special needs adoptions always stand out to Heyza.

Orion, a cat with feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) who was with the rescue for nearly a full year, was recently adopted from the PetSmart cat adoption center, she said. Another cat condo resident, Potato, recently found her forever home after raising a litter of kittens. Potato was considered special needs because she required a home where she would be the only animal, Heyza said.

“We couldn’t even bring her back to our shelter because she didn’t like all the animals in our shelter,” Heyza said. “So that was a really huge success story — the fact that she found a home as an only-cat through PetSmart Charities, and being able to have those condos there.”

For more information, visit rejoycefulrescue.com.

Through its partnership with PetSmart Charities, Lansing-area grassroots nonprofit Saved by Zade has furthered its mission of controlling cat overpopulation and easing related suffering by finding new homes for hundreds of feline friends through in-store adoptions.

When Saved by Zade started, it focused on bottle-feeding stray kittens and moving into TNVR work, which stands for trapping/neutering/vaccinating/returning, according to the organization’s website. Many of the strays at that time were friendly and adoptable, leading the group to create a foster and adoption program in 2018 and partner with PetSmart Charities.

Saved by Zade was incorporated in 2017 and has since grown by “leaps and bounds,” according to Alyssa Draper, a longtime volunteer with the organization. Draper, a veteran volunteer with other organizations since 2012, joined Saved by Zade in 2018 at the onset of its foster and adoption program, she said. Draper also chairs Zade’s Anatomy, a sister organization created to handle high-risk medical issues, with plans to operate a spay-and-neuter clinic in the future.

“Zade” does not refer to a specific person, but the organization likes to say that the “Spirit of Zade” represents the community’s inspiration to help manage cat overpopulation issues, Draper said.

“As soon as we went gung-ho, PetSmart became our first major platform for adoptions,” Draper said.

Today, Saved by Zade handles the cat adoption centers at two PetSmart locations in West Lansing and Okemos and also regularly hosts adoption events there, Draper said. Saved by Zade has adopted a total of 235 cats through PetSmart so far in 2024, and was able to reach 919 adoptions in 2023 and 686 in 2022, she said.

Saved by Zade has seen a drop in adoptions coinciding with rising inflation, but those numbers might just be normalizing from a spike during the COVID-19 pandemic, Draper said.

“In addition to publicized events, we ask volunteers to be there as often as they can just for when people are walking by as well, to hopefully make that connection and find the right kitty the right home at the right time,” she said.

The most obvious benefit of Saved by Zade’s partnership with PetSmart is having a physical platform and presence at those stores so shoppers can learn about the organization and know where to go if they want to adopt a cat, Draper said. PetSmart Charities’ adoption incentive program has been “life saving, literally” for Saved by Zade’s cats, as the grants allow the organization to recoup costs spent on vet care, Draper said.

Draper’s favorite Saved by Zade adoption story involves Cher, a cat she previously fostered. After having surgery to remove intestinal blockages, Cher was adopted in January 2019. However, she returned to the rescue after her owner had to enter assisted living and was unable to bring her along, Draper said. Cher reentered foster care and was able to find a new forever home, where she is already bonding with her new sibling, Draper said.

“My favorite thing about being a Saved by Zade cat is you’re a Saved by Zade cat for life. We will move Earth and mountains to make sure that a cat that is affiliated with our program gets what it needs,” Draper said. “It’s just great to know that not only did she have her happy ending the first go-round, we were there to make sure she got it the second go-round too.”

Despite Saved by Zade helping roughly 2,000 cats a year, overpopulation remains a pressing issue and seems to get worse and worse over time, Draper said. The organization has to make careful use of its limited resources and funds to address as many needs as possible, she said.

“We’re full and we’re always going to be full,” Draper said. “I think that’s just the reality of the overpopulation problem, and hopefully if we keep chiseling away, we can see some progress.”

For more information, visit savedbyzade.com.