Proud To Be Part of This Community
To the Editor:

When our family started vacationing at the Brevort Lake State Forest Campground more than 20 years ago, we remarked how the town of St. Ignace was so much like the farm community Mrs. Ford and I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, like walking into the grocery store and having your groceries taken to your car, going to the bank and people talking to you on a first name basis, and restaurant owners knowing your name and giving you free soft drinks. The old farm community we grew up in no longer exists. It is a commuter sleepover community. The new people get up in the morning and migrate to their jobs and come back home in the evening. We are so glad not to be a part of that anymore, and we are happy to be here in the St. Ignace area for the rest of our lives. We are proud to be a part of a community where the spirit is about giving and sharing with others.

It was mistakenly reported in The St. Ignace News that I am president of the Mackinac County Animal Shelter. In fact, I do not have anything to do with its day-to-day operations. The shelter operations are managed by Ginger Valentine, a contract Mackinac County employee. I am the president of Mackinac Animal Aid Association (MCAA), a nonprofit group formed to raise money for the animals in the MCAS. Our group provides a service for the county's adoptable pets where the county's budget does not have sufficient funds.

Michigan law requires every county shelter animal adopted must be spayed or neutered. MAAA, by donations and adoption fees, makes sure this is done. Not only do we follow the law, it is the only way we can win the war of unwanted animals. One hundred percent of the animals adopted from our shelter are spayed and neutered. We also pay for rabies vaccination and all other medical attention. Our adoption fees, $40 for cats and $60 for dogs, are in line with what folks in this area can afford. MAAA loses about $150 for every animal that we adopt out, but that is why we do what we do. When we started our program three years ago, the Mackinac County Animal Shelter was at the state average of 26% adoption and the rest reclaimed (a small percentage), or euthanized. MAAA has changed that to a 100% adoption rate of adoptable pets. We spend 100% of the money raised on the care and adoption promotions for the homeless pets waiting at the shelter.

George Ford

St. Ignace