The Palm Valley Animal Society’s Puppy Love Gala is returning after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Donna Casamento, executive director at Palm Valley Animal Society in Edinburg, said after two years without holding the gala there’s excitement to see what kind of support the event can provide.
“Opportunites like the Puppy Love Gala will give people a fun chance to come out and donate, find some great items that they want to take home with them and support a great cause,” Casamento said.
The event will be held at 6:30 p.m. Friday, May 6, at the Mission Event Center located at 200 N. Shary Road in Mission.
This year’s gala, the first since 2020, will honor “animal advocate extraordinaire” Barbara Guerra, who has worked with Palm Valley for more than 15 years. The event will also feature various auctions, artworks, jewelry, pet items and raffles.
Casamento said Friday she is excited for the event’s return because it helps raise the necessary funds to provide adequate care for the animals that arrive at the shelter.
“We are always trying to raise money so that we can help more animals in the community and just do the work that we are called upon to do…,” Casamento said, adding that community events help support their work. “We do get some of our funding from our municipal partners, but we have to raise a tremendous amount on top of that to be able to provide humane care to the animals that come to us. We have to raise 40% of our general operating budget through events like Puppy Love.”
The money raised during the gala will be used to provide the animals with basic necessities, such as food, water, medication and other care products. Fundraising efforts for the shelter, which gets help from as many as 700 volunteers a year to care for 15,000 animals annually, also means providing operational resources.
“We basically need everything,” Casmaneto said when asked what the clinic needed most.
Due to the pandemic, the shelter didn’t see many donations the previous two years, but needs didn’t go anywhere.
This makes Friday’s gala even more important for the shelter.
“We have big goals at Palm Valley Animal Society and it’s going to take big hearts and big donations to help us achieve those goals,” Casamento said.
