Pepsi, PAWs and PSAs

Last week, a gorgeous golden named Ginger helped us start off our Monday with a good laugh. This week, she’s back again.
Ginger, I found out, is actually from Canton, Mich. Her owner, Barb Withers, contacted me after seeing Ginger’s video show up on the blog.
“We recently became aware of a Michigan-based cause from the PAWs of Michigan group to fund a low-cost neuter/spay clinic and Ginger did a PSA for them,” Barb wrote. “They are trying to win funding from a Pepsi campaign.”
Indeed they are. I looked into the campaign a bit more and here’s the gist of it — Pepsi is offering a voting contest for people who have good ideas on giving back or improving their communities. A grant of $50,000 is available to the winner.
PAWs of Michigan — which, from what I can gather, appears to be a foster-based rescue out of Wayne County — has entered the contest. You can learn more by clicking here, but it looks like the group is seeking the grant so it can begin leasing a facility to host more low cost spay and neuter clinics.
One of the things I found interesting is that people who care for feral cat colonies can apply for these spay/neuter procedures. I like that idea — feral cats are generally too wild to adopt out to homes, so whenever feral cats wind up in shelters, they face euthanasia. This way, the cats continue to live as they do, only they’ll stop producing more cats.
That’s a good thing, because feral cats aren’t all that bad. They take care of problem rodents and are pretty successful predators in the wild. The problem is how quickly and how much they reproduce, and this is a solution to that problem.
To win the $50,000 grant, PAWs needs people to click on this page and then click to vote for the project. My understanding is that you can vote once a day through May 31.
The projects are ranked by how many votes they get, and so far, PAWs is doing pretty good — it’s ranked 34 out of thousands of projects. Number 34 is not good enough, however, to get the money. In order to get the grant, they need to place in the top 10.
So, get out there and vote! It’s a good cause and it's local, right here in Michigan.
Also, check out Ginger’s public service announcement encouraging people to vote for PAWs below.
By the way, Barb said she and her husband had seen a similar video with a dog online and thought they’d give it a try themselves. Ginger’s videos have been such a hit that they’ve even been contacted by a talent agent!
“We haven’t pursued that route yet for Ginger; she already is spoiled enough ... not sure what being a celebrity would do to her!” Barb wrote.
I think Ginger’s reached celebrity status by now anyhow, she just doesn’t realize it!