Sketches on Atheism

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

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

― Paul McCartney

box of puppiesTwelve years ago, Sandra Guilarducci and her husband, Francisco, started the NGO Associação MaxMello 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.

FoodToday, 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.

Please, 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 Day

Adoption Day

Below 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.

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

 

 

 

77 thoughts on “The MaxMello Association for the Support of Animal Life needs an urgent hand”

  1. Amazing and incredibly sad. My cat is from an animal shelter. He was quite aggressive in the beginning but got over his ‘anger’. It is hard to understand why people have animals and then abandon them like rubbish. In fact, it is hard to make sense of people. Kudos for your support John.

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  5. Just wanted to toss in the importance and benefit of animals used in the soothing part they (specifically dogs in this instance) play in the comforting of ailing people, ie, hospitals, places of infirm, .

    There is usually a disarming effect, which is immediate, and allows an ailing patient a few moments of reprieve. Agree, one can tell a lot about a person in how they treat animals.

    And equal to the task, it goes without saying that one can tell a lot about a person in the way he treats his fellow man. Still, a cool vid, and a good work.

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  9. The problem is universal. It seems, throughout the world, there are millions more people causing the problems for animals than there are trying to alleviate them. We have a situation where a wonderful husband and wife died within months, and their animal shelter has over fifty pets with no future, and there is nobody to take over the feeding and care of strays they undertook..

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    • All I have is their account details

      CAIXA ECONÔMICA FEDERAL
      SWIFT: CEFXBRSP
      Agência 0800
      Cód. Operacional 003
      Conta Corrente 692-4
      CNPJ 16.729.925/0001-08

      This works for transfers locally (I’m in Brazil, but north/east of Ibiuna), but I’m really not sure for international donations. I’m guessing it’s possible bank-to-bank, but that’s probably a little complicated as you’d presumably have to physically go to your bank. This morning, on their FB page, people were encouraging Sandra to open a PayPal account, which would make all this much, much easier. We sent her the details as to how to open one, but she seems to only come online later at night. If bank-to-bank is impossible, which it probably is, I’ll let you know if/when she gets a PayPal going.

      And thanks for the effort, it’s greatly appreciated.

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  12. Reblogged this on The Recovering Know It All and commented:
    Thanks John, with a word to the Readers.
    I don’t know why i’m just seeing this now. Today. The Wife ™ and i have been the recipients of the Love and Companionship of two wonderful Maltese in our married lives and I have had several Beagles before. All my Beagles were either Rescue or re-homed and our sweet Maltese boy and girl were Re-hommed from families who could no longer care for them as we do now.
    If you are so inclined to inviting a Companion Animal into your home, family and lives… please consider Adopting an Animal in need from your local shelter. These wonderful Animals have may have ‘baggage’ but they need your Love, Care and Humanity. To ‘riff’ off of a famous saying, “Be a Blessing and spread the Love that you want to see in the World.” Include one or more of these Animals in your Family for both your and their Health and Well Beeing. You’ll be glad you did.
    -KIA

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  13. Going to be reblogging this on Learning from Dogs on Monday. Jean and I are deeply affected by this and have our fingers crossed that it all works out. Seven of our nine dogs here in Oregon are ex rescues and all beautiful animals.

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    • Cheers Paul, it’s appreciated. As strange as it sounds, wouldn’t it be nice if it were only MaxMello that was in serious need? The sad truth is, as you know and Jean know all too well (especially from your experience Mexico), most shelters are hand-to-mouth, dancing from one crisis to the next.

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    • So, so true. Our local shelter, the Rogue Valley Humane Society (RVHS), is a superbly run outfit but never very far away from the next crisis. Just one Society in one smallish city (30,000 pop.) in one State in one country.

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  14. How incredibly sad this is; I actually cried watching this. It does though make me happier to know there are decent people out there (across the world), who are willing to help. I was only talking last night to a friend regarding maltreatment of horses, and how prevalent this has become recently in the UK due to people being unable to afford to look after them as they should. It makes me so angry. Yet, I am not surprised when I consider what damage human beings are capable of doing to one another too. Some people just haven’t a clue what humanity really is all about. Thanks for posting this John, I hope it raises awareness for the project.

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      • Yes, we do unfortunately. Paul is doing an admirable thing. My good friend actually has quite a few horses, and she refuses to sell them on. She said the trade in horse meat is quite lucrative now. People will actually pretend they want to buy a healthy horse for riding, but in reality they sell it on to slaughter houses. I think it is disgusting.

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      • A fellow blogger and animal lover, misanthropymisunderstood, wrote the following, which seems somewhat appropriate here:

        “…the industrial revolution has created a hell on earth for most living creatures who are in any way suitable for human consumption or use. We eat them, we skin them, we milk them, we grind them, we literally process them like they are inanimate objects to make more inanimate objects. This is the middle ages as far as animals are concerned. We have filled our world with the suffering of innocents and masterfully shielded ourselves from their screams, so as not to let them lay heavy on our conscience.”

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  15. John, just been chatting with Jeannie and we are both very happy to add our modest effort to the wheel.

    You already know that 50% of the net proceeds from the sale of my first book, Learning from Dogs, the same name as my blog, are being donated to our local Rogue Valley Humane Society.

    With effect from today running through to the end of February, the other half of those net proceeds, from all sales outlets, will be donated to MaxMello. This is separate from the private donation that we have already committed to, John.

    Full details will be in my blog post coming out next Monday but I wanted to give you and your readers a ‘heads up’ here and now. Please convey to Sandra and Francisco how much we are thinking of them, and their many animals.

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  18. sent what I could via paypal. All of my cats have been rescues (some through shelters, some who found my backyard). I have one left out of 7. Still getting over a bad three years where I lost 6 from disease and age. Until I get over the grief, I’ll use the money saved in food, litter, and vet bills to support good causes.

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  21. It’s an absolute win win to adopt from a shelter or to take in a stray. What the adoptees bring to enrich a human life is priceless. And, those that operate foster homes and shelters deserve our money and our accolades.

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  22. If I buy the book from the Canadian version of Amazon, does it also help in creating a donation to their shelter?
    Have been wanting to get my hands on the book anyway, and our libraries don’t have it (yet) !

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  24. Hi John, sorry to post here, but I did not find a “contact” field.

    So, do you live in Brazil? I live in Brasilia – DF. It would be possible for me to buy your book without having to pay international shipping? (which will necessarily happen if I buy through Amazon).

    I really enjoyed your blog, either by the atheistic philosophy or by the animal defense footprint. Following from now!

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    • Hi Pedro, no problem posting here. Always good to hear from a fellow humanist and animal lover. I’m in Sao Jose dos Campos (SP), but my Portuguese is atrocious. About the books, send me an email (johnzande@gmail.com) and I’ll get the e-files to you. Amazon’s distribution/royalty rules are a little weird, and because Brazil doesn’t have a tax treaty with the US it just didn’t make any sense making it available here.

      Talk to you soon.

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