Dear Gray Family,

It has been a long wait for all of us, but it is with great pleasure and gratitude to report that our new Nissan Cargo Van is on the road to the rescue for animals and wildlife in distress in Oakville and Milton. We owe this milestone for our Animal Protective Services unit to The Gordon and Patricia Gray Animal Welfare Foundation and its generous $20,000 grant towards the vehicle's purchase.

As you know, a critical part of our work involves keeping our Animal Protection Officers (APS) and their vehicles safely on the road - they're the ones who respond to calls about animals and wildlife that are injured or in danger, often traveling to remote areas. At over 10 years old each, both APS vans had fallen into disrepair and the prospect of maintaining our 24-7 call service without proper transportation was highly concerning.

As you can see by the faces of our APS team in the attached photos, this concern has been alleviated!

Before fully celebrating, however, I wanted to extend our apologies once again for the impediments that prevented a timely arrival of the vans. The entire process - from purchasing and retro-fitting, to transporting and finally wrapping the vehicles with "Humane Society" and "Animal Rescue" in big and bold lettering -- simply took too long. I hope you can pardon the delays and accept our sincere apologies.

Once again, we cannot thank The Gordon and Patricia Gray Animal Welfare Foundation enough for your compassion for the animals, your concern for their well-being and the safety of our officers, and for your philanthropy which makes all that we do for the animals possible. For this we are truly grateful.