East Bay SPCA: REDI Implementation Grant Report

How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?

We are incredibly grateful to the Petfinder Foundation for awarding East Bay SPCA grant funds to help us translate our adoption documents into Spanish. As a result of this funding, we're now providing more-accessible opportunities for pet lovers to adopt animals without language being a barrier to adoption.

Our shelter is located in Oakland, one of the most diverse cities in the country, and many of the people who come to our shelter to adopt animals do not speak English as their first language. By translating our adoption and program brochures, we have been seeing an increase in the participation of our programs and in the adoption of our shelter animals.

How many pets did this grant help?

2,124

Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.

Scarlett, a 6-month-old, black-and-white cat, was adopted on Dec. 22, 2022, to a Spanish-speaking household.

The only family member who spoke English was their young son. With the translated documents, the family didn’t have to rely solely on their young child or an interpreter to facilitate the adoption. They were able to easily adopt the cat they really wanted because of the translated adoption documents.

Days after the adoption, the family returned to the shelter and communicated how grateful they were for the way we cared for their new cat (they loved her shiny coat!) and asked for additional tips on how to feed their other cat at home.

The translated documents not only broke down barriers to adoption, but also opened up opportunities to share valuable resources that benefitted other pets!