National disaster pulls Townsville community together in a truly pawsome way!
The Aussie Pooch Mobile groomers in Townsville have all taken out the Community Award at the 2019 Aussie Pooch Mobile conference in Melbourne. This award was designed to recognise and reward our Aussie Pooch Mobile members who show outstanding community awareness of dogs as well as fundraise and help out at events in their local community.
Not only do the Townsville team continuously show support for their local community by spending time attending local puppy preschools to educate dog owners on the importance of basic grooming, they also showed a huge amount of dedication and community spirit when it came to the national disaster Townsville faced in early 2019.
About the Townsville national disaster
Close to 20, 000 homes needed to be evacuated due to flood water. Now many of those homes are still empty or have been demolished. At the time, entire suburbs resembled ghost towns and rubbish tips. During this event many of those homes had pets, which had to be evacuated through flood waters. 5 emergency shelters in Townsville were opened up for evacuees and their families.
Pawsome community spirit
Liz Keeley, owner of the Aussie Pooch Mobile dog wash franchise in Townsville, quickly realised that there would be dirty, muddy, smelly dogs sleeping on floors and mattresses with their owners, so she collaborated with her operators to get to these shelters to wash the dogs, free of charge. The outstanding Townsville team visited 3 different shelters and together, donated their time washing a heap of dogs.
A heart felt speech
Liz Keeley, spoke with her team members by her side at the 2019 conference. With tears in her eyes Liz had this to say, “I won’t say too much because it is still so raw and real for us. The devastation the floods caused and the number of people and animals without homes was heartbreaking. I could not believe how such a simple thing like sleeping next to a clean dog meant to people. It brought me to tears. Most people had nothing but their dog and the clothes they were wearing and we just wanted to do as much as we could.”
More community teamwork
Furthermore Liz also organised a ‘Flood Relief Dog Wash Day’ at the Strand where she had 3 dog wash trailers there and 4 amazing Aussie Pooch Mobile dog wash members all working together within the community. The pooches were even given doggie blankets and treats.
Thank you
“I would like to say a big thank you to Christine Taylor, the founder of Aussie Pooch who supported us throughout this national disaster and also donated our Aussie Pooch solutions to help us wash all those doggies. The support really helped us all get back on our feet,” Liz said.
“We are so proud of Liz and her entire Townsville team. They truly are a testament to the kind, caring people we like to have within our dog wash family. Congratulations Townsville Team and thank you for caring!” Chris Taylor, Aussie Pooch Mobile founder.
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