My name is Amy Sanchez, and I am the creator and Executive Director of Kommunity Kritters. I live, work and volunteer in the Tree Streets neighborhood of Lewiston, Maine. More than 50% of the residents in the Tree Streets Neighborhood live at or below the poverty line and there is a large homeless population. Our neighborhood has many needs, and our goal is to contribute to improving health outcomes of people and their pets. And we help anyone that comes in – not just the Tree Streets.

When we started in August 2021, we did an event and gave everything away, food, litter, flea and tick, waste bags, toys, anything we could think of with a $6000 grant. We also bought 10 pet waste stations for the neighborhood plus extra waste bags. We had a little over a hundred families attend. We decided we wanted to be more permanent, so we had a table set up in a partner non-profit space. We helped 15-20 people a month.

Let’s fast forward to July 2023. We are two years old; we have our 501c3 status, and we are in the second space of our own. In October 2022 we moved to where we are now at 128 Pine Street, Lewiston, Maine. We were seeing about 60 people a month. We now help 300 plus clients a month. We have specific guidelines we stick to for our clients – they can visit us every two weeks and everyone gets the same amount no matter how many animals they have.We will be starting our spay/neuter program in partnership with the Greater Androscoggin Humane society in December 2023. But that also takes money, so we are working hard to raise as much funding as possible. Anything you can help us with is so appreciated.