A bottomless font of love.

A wonderful story of the love for dogs and cats shown by two people in Brazil.

As is the way in this world of blogging, a few months ago I connected with John Zande. He is an Australian living in Brazil and blogs under the name of The Superstitious Naked Ape. John is also the author of the book The Owner of All Infernal Names, which I reviewed last October (and greatly enjoyed!).

John Zande cover_zpsz7wuq9ccAll the proceeds from the sale of John’s book go towards animal rescue and shelter in Brazil and that offers a strong clue to the purpose of today’s post.

So with that in mind, please read the following post published by John on February 3rd and republished here with John’s permission. (And please make a note to return tomorrow and read the sequel that will explain how you and I can make a positive difference.)

ooOOoo

The MaxMello Association for the Support of Animal Life needs an urgent hand

Posted on February 3, 2016 by

“You can judge a man’s true character by the way he treats his fellow animals.”

― Paul McCartney

Twelve years ago, Sandra Guilarducci and her husband, Francisco, started the NGO Associação box-of-puppiesMaxMello de Amparo à Vida Animal (MaxMello Association for the Support of Animal Life) in Ibiuna (a small city in Sao Paulo state, Brazil), to rescue, treat, house, and place stray and abandoned dogs in loving homes. Animal dumping is a tremendous problem in Brazil, and MaxMello today is home to over 350 dogs and 32 cats sheltered in two properties’s separated by 200 kilometres; a drive Sandra undertakes every single day. Sandra and Francisco never once imagined taking care of so many, but over the years their shelter has become a convenient dumping ground with boxes of puppies simply left on the road, together with the old, the sick, and the unwanted. These are not people who can say, “No,” so every four-legged case left on the road, or rescued by Sandra and Francisco in and around Ibiuna, gets a home and all medical assistance they require.

food-e1454493203915Today, MaxMello burns through 5 tonnes of food every month, and a small army of vets help with reduced fees. But it all adds up. It has added up, and over this past weekend, Sandra was forced to admit that she and Francisco (weighed down with over 30,000 reis debt, about $10,000 US, to vets and pet food suppliers) had reached the point beyond which they simply could no longer afford to keep the shelter open. Sandra put out an urgent call to other NGO’s, saying she will keep the sick, the crippled, and the old (the one’s that stand little to no chance of adoption) but new shelter-homes would have to be found for the hundreds of other rescues under their care. With every NGO we know of here in Sao Paulo being already full, this is, in all honesty, an impossible situation. These are good people, and they (and their keep) are in genuine need of a hand.

logoPlease, help keep MaxMello open and donate to the MaxMello PayPal account: associacaomaxmello@gmail.com. This urgent and immediate appeal has so far raised R$4,500 since the weekend, which is truly fantastic, but we are still a long, long way from giving Sandra and Francisco the breathing room they need to keep this shelter open.

adoption-dayBelow is a MaxMello video (in English), with other videos on their You Tube page, including news reports produced by the TV stations, Record and SBT. This link,  Associação MaxMello de Amparo à Vida Animal, will take you to their Facebook page, and for anyone interested, you can review their current debts there. Please take 30 minutes to scroll through the Facebook photos and watch the videos, and you will see the selfless work Sandra and Francisco do. Any help anyone can provide would be enormously, enormously, appreciated.

Donations, again, can be made via PayPal, at: associacaomaxmello@gmail.com

ooOOoo

As I wrote in my introduction, please come back and read the sequel post tomorrow.

Thank you!

14 thoughts on “A bottomless font of love.”

  1. As Zande’s explained, the current exchange rate means donations go a very long way. Keep in mind the minimum wage in Brazil is only around £130 p/month. By skipping one little luxury this month, like going out for a meal today, and sending what one would have spent on that to the shelter, we can all make make a substantial difference to the lives of these animals.
    My suggestion is for people not to just reach for the change they’ve got in the car ashtray, but consider a little, insignificant sacrifice that will do one no harm, but will have a disproportionately positive effect.
    Skip one bottle of champagne, or a bottle of wine, or don’t buy flowers this week… skip any little thing that one doesn’t really *need*, and put that money to good use.

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    Reply

    1. Delighted to have your very wise advice. Thank you, and welcome to this place. Another way of looking at it is if every follower of Learning from Dogs donated just $5, or the equivalent in their local currency, then MaxMello would be gaining close to $8,000 for their precious work. Magnified by the exchange rate!

      So please everyone, do whatever you can! (And read tomorrow’s post!)

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. Not yet. We’ve just started the work on another apartment this morning, so yesterday was last minute planning and today checking that everything is going to work as planned 🙂
        I’ll try to get to it later this week.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. Oh, no problem at all. It’s not even necessary, but like we were talking about, just knowing people from across the world are thinking about her and MaxMello would alone be a wonderful gift.

        Liked by 1 person

      1. There are an awful lot of good People in the world.. The media just tells us all about the Bad ones, which seems to then take over our perception that the world is a bad place.. Its not.. Only but a few are who get all the attention..

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