HOPE started in the late Fall of 2012 but received our 501(c)3 in February of 2013. A woman named Pat Manser did volunteer work at the Effingham County Animal Shelter for years and years. She helped dramatically with rescues and transports to get the animals into rescues and out of the shelter. For a few years, Dena Stapleton was also volunteering up there and the two hit it off. Then a dog came into the shelter named Kekoa and it changed all our lives. This dog was a bait dog and it was in extremely bad shape. Pat and Dena started rallying for donations to help the dog and it was then we saw a need that the county just did not have. Kekoa took a lot of donations, time, recovery and training. But he went thru it and was able to get adopted by a lovely woman who treated Kekoa like the precious dog he was, and he lived out his years in the best loving home. Kekoa was why Pat started all this. And in his memory, we will continue to help the animals of Effingham County Animal Shelter.
We needed an organization to help the shelter with emergency medical needs like Kekoa. More often than not when they came to the shelter in such bad shape they were put down. As there just were no funds in the county’s budget to pay for such things. Kekoa stole the heart of Pat and she had to do something. So HOPE or Helping Out Pets in Effingham was started. Pat as the President, Dena as the Vice-President & Treasurer, and we had a few others that helped out and volunteered too thru the years. They either moved away or life happened and eventually it was just Pat & Dena.
The shelter went thru some staff changes through the years and we were delighted when Lorna Shelton arrived. She has made so many changes and was allowed to do more things for the animals than any other Shelter Director in the past. Pat and Lorna started working together to get many additions done. HOPE helped to fund new cleaning products for the shelter to keep Parvo down, supplied vaccinations so all adopted animals had their shots, heartworm testing for dogs and FelV/ FIV testing for cats, a cattery inside with extra ventilation and special cages to allow them more room to play plus extended concrete work to outside kennel runs for the dogs with shelter above it. HOPE also helps out when grant funding or county funding runs out with the Barn Cat Program. On average that monthly bill is about $2000 but it has gone as expensive as $12,000 in one month. Stopping one cat at a time from breeding and making thousands more is worth it.
Now HOPE is strictly volunteer based and donation based. It is with these that we are able to do so much to help. Pat Manser was a well-known staple at any events like the Butterducks Winery events, Strawberry Festival, or any other event that was around the area. Pat was always there. You could not help but to come over to Pat’s table with all the awesome goodies and things she had that were donated to sell. We had a book out so everyone could see all the dogs and cats we were helping thru the years. From bait dogs, to a collar embedded into its skin, to broken legs, broken hips and more. We rallied and rallied until the bills got paid. Pat was always up for conversing with anyone about the dogs and cats. She loved to tell stories about them.
Now right as HOPE was really getting going, Mrs. Pat was diagnosed with cancer. That bad c-word. It was stage one. She went to chemo and radiation and beat it. She rang that bell. We all were overjoyed. A few years later it came back in another area, so now it went to stage 2 cancer. After several rounds of chemo and such she beat that too and rung that bell!!! Every year was another test to make sure it was still gone. Pat each and every time resumed everything she was doing for HOPE. Going to events, helping the shelter, coordinating rescues and transports and if she had a down time Dena was there to help out until she felt better. Often Mrs. Pat had dear friends or her daughter helping her at the events. Then it hit again, but in a different area, making it Stage 3. But she prevailed just as she had done two other times.
Several years passed and after another scan the cancer came back, now its still stage 3 cancer as it came back in the same area as before. Mrs. Pat was such a trooper and went thru her treatments, acupuncture and more to get better. Again, she rang that bell. She was even featured on the news for being the longest living colon cancer survivor of 7 years back in 2020. “Every time it’s come back, I knew in my own heart and my mind that I couldn’t let myself be down. (…) I did lose my hair the other 3 times, but I loved my wigs! I really did,” she said.
Now fast forward to 2022, the cancer came back but was small and treatable by medication. All seemed to be working and going great until early 2023 when it went to her brain. Now we are stage 4 cancer, and it’s not good. In and out of hospitals, Mrs. Pat could not keep up with daily activities for HOPE and Dena was asked to step in and take over them. Now Dena had been a part of everything from the start but mostly for the past 7 years worked behind the scenes on the financial side of things. Mrs. Pat was a dedicated person to so many things like her family, her dog Fritz, her friends and also HOPE. It pained her to not be able to do all the things she wanted to do. She knew she had a great friend in Lorna the Shelter Director and they worked so well together for years. The time had come, Pat posted on her page and was shared to the HOPE page she was passing the torch per-say and making sure Dena would take over right where she left off.
It saddens me to even say, but just a few short weeks later Mrs. Pat passed away peacefully at her home. She is no longer in pain and she no longer has cancer. She is up above and watching down on all of us making sure we are doing her proud. We will Mrs. Pat, we will! HOPE will continue with Dena at the helm and it will be just as it was. We will continue to help the shelter just as we always have and just as we always will with the donations we receive.
If you would like to make a check/money order donation please send it HOPE P.O. Box 2601 Rincon, GA 31326. Sorry for any inconvenience but at this time, we are not accepting PayPal, CashApp or Venmo.
Helping Out Pets in Effingham 