ARF’s “Labor Day of Love” Proves Most Ambitious Mission Yet

Volunteers and staff from the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons in Wainscott spent their Labor Day weekend on a mission that they won’t soon forget.

In what they’ve now dubbed “A Labor Day of Love,” ARF sent two rescue vans to South Carolina over the holiday weekend to bring 46 dogs back to ARF.

The project has proved to be ARF’s biggest rescue effort to date.

ARF had been slated to send one van to South Carolina to pick up 23 dogs from foster families, but just days before they left, the shelter received word from a concerned volunteer that a shelter in South Carolina was closing its doors for good and all the animals at the shelter would be euthanized.

When ARF Senior Director of Operations & Partnership Programs Michele Forrester got wind of the dire situation, she had one reaction: “We can’t let this happen.”

She immediately arranged to take another 23 dogs and prepped a second van to make the trip.

The dogs from the scheduled rescue were living with foster families, while the other half were pulled directly from the closing shelter and brought to the ARF Adoption Center in Wainscott.

Once the dogs were picked up from the foster families in South Carolina, ARF saw another outpouring of love, when many of those foster families went back to the closing shelter to rescue 22 more dogs, who will remain in foster care through the end of this month, when they will be brought north to ARF in Wainscott.

Their kindness brought the total number of dogs rescued over the weekend up to 68, said ARF spokeswoman Jamie Berger.

The dogs that came north over the weekend are being examined by ARF’s full time Veterinarian Dr. Sarah Alward, and will be spayed or neutered, microchipped and brought up to date on their vaccines.

Once they are medically cleared, the dogs will be available for adoption.

To date this year ARF has rescued over 250 animals from South Carolina and has eight more rescues planned for 2015.