Jericho, VT – December 6, 2023 – Vermont Disaster Animal Response Team (VDART) DONATES $15K TO DARTCC
Emergency Animal Shelter App (EASA) Validated By VDART
DART Command Central's EASA, a mobile app that helps communities prepare for disasters and manage temporary emergency pet shelters, is pleased to announce $15,000 in funding provided by Vermont Disaster Animal Response Team (VDART).
During the region’s unprecedented flooding, VDART shelter volunteers successfully implemented DARTCC’s beta Shelter Module, a systematic method for monitoring and recording the care of pets. Their success validated our Shelter Module and our mission, resulting in a donation that pushed our funding closer to the $75,000 goal for 2023. This funding will help complete the Shelter Module. Additional fundraising initiatives will help us build more modules that provide further training, guidance, and assistance to organizations for establishing standard protocols for disaster teams.
“DARTCC was an essential partner to VDART’s pet sheltering operations in response to the catastrophic July floods in Vermont,” said VDART Board Chair Joanne Bourbeau. “We’re grateful for the generosity of Vermonters who recognized the importance of our work to keep pets and families together through this crisis and beyond, and provided us with the opportunity to make this significant gift to DARTCC. We’re confident that our investment in this resource will result in continued improvements to our operations in the future.”
Due to climate change, disaster emergencies have become common, which makes disaster preparedness more important than ever. The Vermont flooding presented an opportunity to demonstrate DARTCC’s easy-to-learn operations platform. Despite the flood’s duration, experienced emergency pet shelter volunteers from outside of VDART were able to quickly learn the Shelter Module to help provide a successful disaster preparedness response. VDART team members have trained for years, but this was the first paperless shelter providing live input and suggestions for future features. DARTCC provides the Shelter Module to volunteer teams at no cost to the volunteers.
Download a PDF version of this press release: DARTCC_Press_Release__VDART_15K_Grant.pdf