Basic Animal Rescue Training has been awarded a $50,000 matching grant from the American Veterinary Medical Foundation (AVMF) to be used toward expanding the training program beyond Minnesota and starting chapters in 5 new states. This money will be used toward purchasing training equipment and holding Train the Trainer classes for new BART volunteers in chapters outside of Minnesota.

BART requested financial assistance from the AVMF for national expansion in response to interest from multiple states in starting the training there. People in twenty five states have contacted BART thus far.

To date, this AVMF grant is the largest amount of funds donated to BART. Dr. Anna van Heeckeren, chair of the AVMF Grants and Awards Committee, said the caliber of BART’s written national expansion proposal was stellar. “They obviously put a lot of effort into thinking about the program and how to put that across on paper,” she said.

The $50,000 grant to BART is one of the highest amounts of money that the AVMF has awarded from its Animal Disaster Relief and Response Fund, aside from the grants provided to the AVMA Veterinary Medical Assistance Teams.

To learn more about starting a BART chapter and how to apply for the AVMF matching funding, contact us or call 612 282 2608.

Read the related story in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association