You’re out shopping for that new sweater that you have had your eye on for months! You take a trip around your local mall, newly purchased sweater in hand, grab a drink from the food court and head out to your car. There, just waiting to ruin the excitement of your new acquisition is a nice, fresh parking ticket, plastered to your windshield with a blatant ostentatious jeer.
Nothing can quite ruin your day like a parking ticket. One moment you don’t have a care in the world, and then next – BAM – you are trying to calculate and budget for an unplanned parking ticket. No one likes parking tickets. They are expensive, a blow to your driving record and incur time and resources that none of us want to furnish.
However, if you live in the city of Muncie, Indiana, there is a way to get out of paying that nasty parking ticket all while helping others. The Muncie Police Departments and the Muncie Animal Care and Services Center have pronounced an alliance. Announcing the new partnership on their Facebook page, the organizations have combined for a common goal: obtaining cat supplies.
The Muncie Animal Care and Service Center currently houses over 350 cats and kittens who are in urgent need of supplies. For a limited time, the Muncie Police Department will allow citizens to pay their tickets in the form of a donation of supplies, including cat food, litter, toys, blankets and bedding. No cash is required.
The program means that residents with parking tickets can bring their donations to the Muncie Animal Care and Services Center in lieu of paying their tickets with cash. The only catch is that the dollar amount of the donation must equal the total amount of the parking ticket.
The program will only run for one week. Interested citizens can present their ticket and their donation items to the Muncie Animal Care and Services Center or the Muncie Police Department and have their ticket marked paid in full. Jami Brown, Muncie PD representative, made a please to residents in a Facebook video, encouraging people to rise up and meet the desperate needs of the cats and kittens being housed at the shelter, stating, “Being here is just an overwhelming need, you can see it immediately for the animals.
They need paper towels, litter, and food. The need is there.” The overwhelming cat and kitten population has led to a decreased ability to feed and provide stable medical care for the animals. The Muncie Animal Care Center informed the community that they were currently overrun with cats and kittens and more were being dropped off every day. The support that occurred from the community was overwhelming and the response to the program was awe-inspiring.
There is an underlying hope that drives like this one will catch on. Charity drives have long become a popular movement and by advocating within the community and meeting a common need, we can promote civic responsibility, community awareness and comradery.
