I am writing to you to let you know about something new and exciting in the Athens area. Oconee County Animal Shelter and Rescue has officially launched a foster program! We have never had a foster program before, so we are truly working from the ground up.

Animal Control Officer Crystal Berisko has always had a passion to save as many of the animals as she could; however, she was working with limited resources and a full schedule. Through a stroke of luck, Officer Berisko and I met. We soon realized that we were working towards the same goal.

Since then, we have made humongous strides in our effort to save animals from euthanasia. Our primary goals at this point are to raise awareness of our program, and establish a larger foster network. The largest part of this puzzle has been finding foster homes.

Fostering really does save lives! Unfortunately, we are unable to keep animals after a certain time period, or when we reach capacity. We are doing our absolute best to negate this whenever possible through the use of fostering. A foster home gives an animal a chance at life!