As part of our post covid discussions on the recycling of used tennis balls, as a college and centre we started selling some of the old tennis balls from our HR office on our Ipswish Road campus, as well as from the Tennis Centre on our Easton Campus. So far we have raised an incredible £209 for a fantastic cause. 

A few words from Streetvet on the incredible work they do............

StreetVet has a team of over 400 vet and vet nurse volunteers. Most have full time roles within the veterinary industry and volunteer a few hours in the evenings or/and at weekends. They provide free accessible vet care to the homeless, vulnerable and those in crisis nationwide. 

At each of our 17 locations, we outreach regularly, at a fixed time and place, normally in conjunction with a social care provider such as food provision by a third-party partner, soup kitchen, day centre or hostel. We keep the place and time consistent in order to build a trusted presence in the community, it also allows better engagement with the owners as they know where and when to find us. We now have over 1600 patients registered with us and in 2021 performed over 1700 consults.

During these outreaches we deliver free preventative and reactive veterinary care, procedures such as simple diagnostic tests, flea and worming treatment, education and daily essentials such as food, treats and other pet equipment to the pets of those experiencing homelessness.

If an animal needed to be referred to veterinary practice for surgery, x-rays, blood tests or further investigative procedures we cover the cost of this treatment, ongoing medication and often transportation costs to and from the vet appointment.

We also support pets referred to us outside the 17 locations. These referrals come from members of the public, vet practices, social workers, hostel staff, police, RSPCA to name a few. In cases such as these we support the owner and their pet by working with a local veterinary practice to provide the care they need, whilst covering the cost of the treatment. This significantly increases our outgoings as we do not have a team of volunteers on the ground to provide the preventative and reactive veterinary care, so most cases that are referred to us are costly emergency procedures.

With your kind donation, we can not only continue to provide the ongoing veterinary care for our current patients and their people, we can expand our services to other areas of the country, giving even more animals the help and care that they need.