A new local organization, Spay To Save, kicked off its fundraising campaign at a community get-together in the Carver Room at the Port Angeles Library on Thursday, Dec. 17.

About 3,000 pets enter Clallam County's animal shelters and foster homes every year. One thousand of those homeless dogs, cats, puppies and kittens are put to sleep primarily because there are no homes for them.

To address the community's pet overpopulation problem, a group of animal welfare advocates formed the nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization whose sole mission is to save animals' lives.

Spay To Save plans to open a low-cost, spay/neuter clinic in Port Angeles for dogs and cats from low-income households, which will include free transportation to and from the clinic. The organization's goal is to raise $100,000 to open its clinic Nov. 1, 2010.

Spay To Save is in partnership with the Olympic Peninsula Humane Society, Port Angeles; Peninsula Friends of Animals, Sequim; Friends of Forks Animals, Forks; and the Olympic Animal Sanctuary, Forks, in its mission. The groups feel that together they can prevent thousands of unwanted pet births, reducing the number of pets that end up in the community's shelters or homeless on the streets.

For more information, call Sue Miles, president of Spay To Save, at 360-928-2501, or e-mail to milesdobies@msn.com.