I love buying things from here! Clean, friendly volunteers and great variety of items. Plus, I love that everything they do and what they stand for helps the animals in our community.
I'm always amazed whenever I visit Fresh Start with the their low-cost prices and quality offerings.
I’m so thankful that we have Julie and all the volunteers at Fresh Start Animal Outreach. They work tirelessly helping animals and the people of our community with the resources to care for their pets. I work at a local business and this summer we paired up Tito’s to raise money for them. I hope to make it an annual event to raise enough money as we possibly can for this wonderful organization!
To say I'm proud to be a part of our organization is an understatement! Thanks to our wonderful volunteers and very supportive community, we have been able to help literally thousands of animals in our area over the last seven years.
We have transported animals out of our local kill shelter to no kill rescues, provided pet food after a tornado struck our small town, given assistance with spaying and neutering over 3,500 cats and dogs, helped with emergency vet bills, and prevented hundreds of unwanted animals by starting a trap-neuter-return (“TNR”) program in our town.
None of this would be possible without YOU. If you have donated monies, donated items to our thrift shop or shopped in our thrift shop (which funds our organization), you have been a huge part of our success and sustainability. As we grow, we look forward to helping many more animals in our community and we thank you for your continued support!
I cannot say enough good things about this thrift shop and the services they provide. From the day they opened until now I have been going in regularly and they always have nice clean merchandise and a variety for everyone to enjoy. I have also accepted vouchers for helping with spay and neutering of our pets which has been very helpful and much appreciated. And did I mention the staff is absolutely wonderful. If you have never checked this place out, you need to do so. Go shop and find stuff to help the animals! And remember.... spay and neuter your pets!
Fresh Start was created to address multiple issues that affect the animals in our community. Our goals were to assist people financially if they were experiencing a veterinary emergency; ensure that no animal was euthanized at our local kill shelter by finding at-risk animals their forever homes or transporting them to regional no-kill shelters; offer a free voucher program to assist in reducing the cost of spaying/neutering; help pet families with food for their animals; and initiating and operating a trap, neuter, return (TNR) program within our city. We are able to achieve these goals through sales at our all-volunteer run thrift store.
I am proud to say that in the few years we have been in operation we have spent over $100,000 on our veterinary services and spay/neuter program. Our TNR program has trapped, released, or found homes for over 200 unclaimed/feral cats. We have partnered with another non-profit to provide and install a play area for the dogs at our local shelter as well assure that no adoptable cats or dogs have been put to sleep.
Our programs have been hugely successful and continue to grow! An amazing feat considering our community population is under 5,000 people and our store/programs are operated strictly by a small group of dedicated volunteers!
The Eldon Spay & Neuter Clinic does approximately 2000 spay and neuters each year. Fresh Start Animal Outreach provides financial assistance for a large segment of these surgeries. We are proud to have them as part of the team to address pet overpopulation.
The ladies at Freshstart are wonderful. Our house burned down in 2020 and they went above and beyond to help us. We have a blue and gold macaw who we were able to save from the fire, but her cage was destroyed. I called Freshstart for help and within 24 hours they not only found us a cage but payed for it and arranged for it to be delivered locally to us. This was an enormous relief for us and enabled us to keep Bubba with us. I can never say thank you enough for what they did to help in our time of need.
I wouldn’t know where to start because Fresh Start has helped with my animal rescues and emergency situations so many times over the years. All the way from trapping a kitty on Hwy 54 and Hwy 52 (yes it was successful) from helping with medical expenses when a dog was hit on Hwy 17 bridge and we couldn’t find the owner for a while, to helping with putting down a dog for a family that the grandmother was trying to support her recently acquired grandchildren in an emergency situation as well as dealing with their family dog dying. To top that off helping with purchasing a new K-9 for Cooper County Sheriffs Department and that wasn’t even a county that was in their area. I could not say enough positive things about Freah Start Animal Outreach.
I also have to add that all the money they raise is donated to helping the animals besides paying for their building expenses, insurance etc. Volunteer base 100%. Keep up the great work everyone.
Fresh Start Animal Outreach is an amazing organization. The outpouring of love and compassion that they have for animals is out of this world. They have vouchers to help get cats and dogs spayed and neutered at local Spay and Neuter clinics, they will help in any way they can to help people get help for their animals. This is a top notch nonprofit organization that stands behind their word in everything they do. The friendliness of their staff in their thrift store and who helps behind the scenes is a breath of freah air. I highly recommend checking them out and donating to them. I can gauranteed you they are true and amazing people who love alls animals.
Tabby