DES MOINES, Iowa — Berwick, Iowa Postmaster Rae Streepy and local U.S. Postal Service officials will join staff members of the Animal Rescue League (ARL) of Iowa on Saturday, May 1, to celebrate the release of the Adopt a Shelter Pet commemorative stamps. The event will start at 11 a.m., at the ARL Main Shelter, located at 5452 NE 22nd Street in Des Moines, and will be held outdoors, weather permitting (the stamps will go on sale at Post Offices nationwide on Friday, April 30).
The stamps were introduced to the public on The Ellen DeGeneres Show last month. The Postal Service is working with DeGeneres and Halo, Purely for Pets, a holistic pet care company she co-owns, to promote the campaign and to bring greater attention to the cause. The campaign in intended to increase public awareness about sheltered pets, encourage pet adoption and promote humane and responsible pet care.
The Animal Rescue: Adopt a Shelter Pet commemorative stamps feature photographs of five cats and five dogs taken by veteran stamp photographer Sally Andersen-Bruce. All 10 animals were adopted from a shelter in New Milford, CT.
Every year, six to eight million cats and dogs enter animal shelters. Although the problem seems overwhelming, the key to the solution is adopting a shelter pet when seeking a new companion and ensuring that the animal is spayed or neutered.
The Animal Rescue League of Iowa is a nonprofit organization founded in 1926. The ARL is the state’s largest animal shelter, serving more than 19,000 animals each year from all corners of the state. The ARL is the greater Des Moines area’s only shelter that never turns away an animal in need. More information is available at www.ARL-Iowa.org.
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A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 150 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no direct support from taxpayers. With 36,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, the Postal Service relies on the sale of postage, products and services to pay for operating expenses. Named the Most Trusted Government Agency five consecutive years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $68 billion and delivers nearly half the world’s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 28th in the 2009 Fortune 500.
