Sylacauga Nonprofits and Charities

I have volunteered with ACFS in Sylacauga, Alabama for 7 or 8 years now, watching their operation, their reach, and their impact grow steadily, and all signs indicate that their growth will continue. I have found the organization to be remarkably compassionate, effective, efficient, and ambitious, operating with a tiny paid staff supporting a small army of enthusiastic, inspired and dedicated volunteers. They provide a few days' worth of food to a thousand families or more each month and supplemental backpack food packages to over two thousand students each week, using a combination of food donated by grocery stories in two counties and food purchased or donated from regional food banks. They bat far above their weight in impacting hunger in Talladega County and the surrounding counties in Alabama and I have always been grateful for the opportunity to participate in this worthwhile endeavor.

Signed adoption forms and paid $450 adoption fee with this rescue in the middle of October 2017 for an expected delivery date 1 week out. Transportation was for a large group of puppies from Alabama to NY. That was canceled last minute & rescheduled for the next week which was also canceled last minute. This confirmed assumptions that something was not right. Wanted to pull out of adoption but was committed to the animal and decided to ride it out. <br><br>The owner/manager of the operation bold faced lied several times about what was going on. I believe she was trying to SELL as many puppies as possible before she transported any of them. I would have been OK with this if they were up front about it.....transportation is expensive, need to make sure we have enough adoptions to justify costs. Instead we got lies. Some members of the adoption group were traveling several hours to the pick up location only to be informed an hour before scheduled delivery time that the transportation had been canceled. During this time period the owner openly solicited for additional cash donations which she apparently need to deliver our puppies that we had already donated $450 + to adopt. <br><br>After several weeks we were finally told that our puppies were being transported and would arrive at the pickup location. No one in the group really believed any of it having been let down several times at this point. Once again the transportation was canceled last minute. According to the owner the transportation vehicle (an ill equipped retrofitted school bus) was involved in a accident in Ohio. When one member of the adoption group who had traveled several hours from PA to NY and booked a hotel room began to openly question what was going the owner got nasty and canceled his adoption with no conversation. She removed him from the private facebook adoption group she was using to communicate. She threatened that if any one else in the group wanted to be "As&%@les" she would cancel their adoption as well. She concocted a partial truth story that the bus was in an accident, all the puppies were okay but the bus was totaled and the driver was in the hospital. The puppies were staying at a farm with a nice fireman and the driver was going to rent a u-haul and finish transporting the puppies to NY the next morning once released from the hospital. Of course they needed more cash donations to rent the U-Haul.<br><br>At this point the member of the adoption group who was kicked out began digging to find out what was really going on. My wife and I began communicating with him directly to try and get to the bottom of it. He was able to confirm that there was an accident in Ohio involving a school bus transporting several puppies. A fireman did take the puppies to his house so the humane society could pick them up and they weren't on the side of the highway. We played nice in her facebook group while we began to communicate with the human society. At this point we began to realize the horror of the situation. There we 16+ puppies crammed into rusty cages filled with poop on the school bus. Several cages contained multiple puppies. When the accident occurred all the cages were thrown all over the bus because they were not restrained in anyway. All of the dogs were sick and under weight. Most had coccidia and a few had parvo. The humane society seized all the dogs and they were being held in quarantine for 10 days. We began working with the humane society to figure out how we could get our puppy.<br><br>During this time the owner continued with her story that they were renting a uhaul but none were available in the area so they had to wait a few days to get one. At this point we were in regular contact with the nice people at the humane society and they informed us that under no circumstances were they going to release the animals back to the rescue. In fact they were pursuing federal animal cruelty charges against the owner. We made arrangements to pick up our puppy on the morning that the quarantine period ended. My wife had to drive 6 hours one way to get to the humane society.<br><br>At this point the owner let up a little bit and said that she was getting a lawyer involved to get the puppies back from the humane society. She also said that she was going to refund all adopters their donation fee. When my wife got to the humane society to pick up the puppy someone from the rescue was there trying to claim him and the puppy of the other adopter who had been kicked out. Police were involved. Two of the puppies that had parvo died while in quarantine. <br><br>Our $450 adoption fee was supposed to include: the puppy, transportation, microchip, shots, a neuter voucher and clean bill of health with a collar and leash. All we got was the puppy and we were lucky to get him. Luckily he was relatively healthy except for a fairly decent amount of coccidia. Once the owner realized we had got our puppy from the humane society she began to try and play nice with us again. I had completely stopped communicating with her at this point. <br><br>She obviously never issued any refund. We tried to dispute the charge on the credit card but she fought it and won based on the fact that we did get the puppy in the end. As part of the dispute process we contacted the vet who she was supposedly working with. He was in canada and we live in the US which is obviously an issue. As soon as he heard we were part of this adoption group he wanted nothing to do with it. Apparently she had screwed him over several times before.<br><br>We wanted a rescue dog, however we didn't realize that we would be recusing him from the recuse organization itself! This rescue organization has a long history of doing things like this. It often changes its name and location to throw people off their trail. Soldiers for Strays, Global K9 Rescue etc... They are all run by the same terrible person. Please stay as far away as possible from this organization. They are terrible people and do not care about the animals. Please spread the word if you can. I believe that many of the positive reviews you will find are either fake or are from associates of the organization. I think she had associates in our adoption group to try and spread fake communication to people so they wouldn't realize what was going on. <br><br>On a positive note. Meet Henry, he is a great dog and we are happy to have rescued him from such an awful person.

The B. B. Comer Memorial Library in Sylacauga, Alabama---a town of just over 12,000 people--- won a National Award for Library Service from the Institute of Museum and Library Services in 2000. The 30,000 card-carrying members from parts of four counties enjoy a beautiful facility, marble sculpture, paintings, fast access computers, cultural arts programs, and books galore--free of charge. The assistance provided by the BBCL Foundation--- set up in 1992 solely to assist the library with its powerful mission--- has made a difference for the entire economically depressed area.