Dear Sato Supporter,
Spring has arrived. I hope you and your family are enjoying some nicer weather and are healthy and safe.
For Puerto Rico, the arrival of spring means another hurricane season is less than two months away. As always, my small but mighty team and I remain #satostrong and focused on saving lives. Please keep reading for more on our latest challenges, but also some of our latest triumphs - including an exciting 'foster failure' and a life-saving vaccine clinic.
Thank you for being here with us and for making sure the dogs of Puerto Rico are not forgotten.
In gratitude,
-- Chrissy Beckles, President & Founder
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On the Ground in Puerto Rico:
A Status Update
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Tommy is one of several dogs we recently found abandoned on Dead Dog Beach. He is now safely in our care. However, our team is very concerned about an influx of dogs being left to fend for themselves - on the beach and across the island. |
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On the evening of April 6th, the entire island of Puerto Rico went dark. A fire at the island’s major power plant cut off electricity to all 3.2 million residents. About 100,000 homes, including those of our team, lost running water.
For the most part, power and water has returned to all of our homes. But this experience has yet again exposed Puerto Rico’s severe vulnerability stemming from a multitude of overlapping crises:
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The island’s stray dog crisis continues at unprecedented levels. Every public communications outlet of the The Sato Project team - from our social media channels to our email inboxes - is flooded with requests for help with stray dogs. In over 10 years of rescuing, we have never experienced such an influx. We are also seeing a surge of dogs being abandoned on Dead Dog Beach. We monitor the beach every day and have rescued every new dog we find there; however, this surge has us deeply concerned.
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Crumbling infrastructure leaves the people of Puerto Rico in a very vulnerable state. Since Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017, power outages have become a normal part of life. We have at least one power outage a week, sometimes two, usually lasting about 30 minutes. However, this recent major outage was much bigger. Our homes did not have power and water consistently until four days after. During that time, school was canceled, businesses were closed, and families had to worry about medications staying refrigerated as well as food going to waste (food cannot always be easily replaced where over 40% of the population lives below the poverty line). A failed generator also caused panic at a hospital. Across the island, residents were reminded of the horrible months after Hurricane Maria, when most of us lacked power and access to basic services for at least several months, and for some, over a year or more. And now another hurricane season is right around the corner.
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More hurricanes are on their way. Experts are already predicting an ‘above average’ hurricane season during 2022, with at least 19 named storms and nine hurricanes - at least four of which will be Category 3 or higher. With Puerto Rico’s weak infrastructure, even a major tropical storm can cause severe damage. Another hurricane like Hurricane Maria would be completely catastrophic.
All of these issues are against the backdrop of the pandemic, Puerto Rico’s ongoing economic instability and near daily earthquakes still occurring in the southwestern corner.
Sometimes, when the island can’t catch a break, it is easy to feel like our team can’t catch one either. However, knowing we have your support, no matter what comes our way, helps us remain #satostrong and looking forward to the future. This support truly means the world to us.
Thank you for helping us stay focused on saving as many lives as possible.
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Satos Philip and Perla spend an evening in the dark. Two weeks ago, a fire at a power plant caused the entire island to lose electricity. This blackout made national news and, for many of us in Puerto Rico, reawakened fears of another devastating storm like Hurricane Maria. |
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Next Community Vaccine Clinic
Scheduled for April 30th
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On April 30th, our team will protect another 500 dogs from deadly diseases at no cost to their families. |
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We are excited to announce our next community vaccine clinic! This clinic is particularly special for our team. It is taking place right on Dead Dog Beach (officially, Playa Lucia), the headquarters of our rescue efforts in Yabucoa. Yabucoa is the island's poorest municipality and has many pet owners in need of support.
On Saturday, April 30th, our team, with the help of Dr. Brito of Candelero Animal Hospital and the Yabucoa municipality, will vaccinate 500 dogs at no-cost to the dog owners. Each dog in attendance will be vaccinated against distemper, leptospirosis, rabies, and parvovirus, four deadly viruses that continue to have outbreaks in Puerto Rico. The only way to fight back is to vaccinate as many dogs as possible.
We are incredibly grateful to have the support of Banfield Foundation in making this clinic possible.
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by signing up for a monthly gift today.
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Left: Jesse (now Gidget) relaxes in her new home. Right: Jesse meets our volunteer Carrie after arriving on her Freedom Flight. Little did either of them know that this meeting would end up changing both their lives.
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Jesse and her four siblings were rescued from a beach after they followed some friendly vacationers back to their AirBnb. From there, they came into our program, were fostered together by one of our volunteers in Puerto Rico, and were quickly matched with forever families on the mainland.
However, the day before their Freedom Flight, Jesse’s adopter suddenly backed out and decided not to adopt her. Our adoption team reached out to our volunteers in New York to see if anyone could foster Jesse on short notice. Our volunteer, Carrie, who was already scheduled to volunteer at the airport, generously stepped up. She said she would be happy to provide Jesse a place to stay until a new family was found. Well, it turned out that a new family was never needed.
Carrie originally started volunteering with The Sato Project in honor of her senior dog Ernie, who passed away. Still mourning his loss, she was not ready yet to adopt a new dog. However, the way Jesse unexpectedly ended up on her couch didn’t feel insignificant. Carrie says: “I am a believer that the dog one needs, and is meant to be with you, will find you. Together there will be a recognition of what's meant to be and it's then that you begin your partnership.”
And then something else happened that sealed the deal. In Carrie's words:
"She did not respond to the name, ‘Jesse’ for me so, we tried a few others to see if anything stuck. DIXIE, HAZEL, WILMA-JEAN, DAISY, ROSIE, RITA... no dice. She acted like I was talking to someone else! I just figured her new family would sort it out and so I decided I should respect the name she was given until that time. When the hard conversation came in letting her know that families were interested in adopting her, I told her that I would always remember our time together. I mentioned to her that we had a lot in common because I love the beach and so did ERNIE. I told her that we used to walk together along the ocean's edge and assumed that she had, too in PR before she came to New Jersey. I promised that I would ask her new family to take her to the beach if they could. I also told her that I like to surf and they used to call me, ‘GIDGET.’ In that moment, her ears perked up, her tail started to wag and she ran right over to where I was sitting. Every time I used it, she responded with a look and a wag! That's how she got the name GIDGET. After that, I asked her if she would like to stay with me so that we could have adventures together and she lowered her head into my hand and looked up at me. I took that as a ‘yes' and the partnership began."
Now we know the reason Gidget’s first adoption fell through. She wasn’t meant to be theirs. She was meant to find her way to Carrie.
Want some more uplifting content? Click below to watch our trending TikTok video of Gidget's brother Kai meeting his dad for the first time at the airport. Thank you for helping both of these sweet satos' dreams come true.
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The Sato Project is dedicated to rescuing abused and abandoned dogs in Puerto Rico, where there are an estimated 500,000 stray dogs and a combined euthanasia rate of 94% across all municipal shelters. In 10 years, we have rescued nearly 6,000 dogs, rehabilitated them with the highest standards of veterinary care, and found them loving homes on the mainland U.S. We are also working to make permanent change on the island through community outreach and no-cost spay/neuter and vaccine programs. |
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"We fight so the dogs of Puerto Rico don't have to." |
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