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Partly Cloudy A permanent home for Last Hope’s flea market
Last Hope, Inc. Animal Rescue & Rehabilitation of Wantagh hopes to find a permanent home in Huntington Town for its thrift store later this year.
The organization’s Special Needs committee hosted a flea market and jewelry sale on Jan. 30. Committee Coordinator JoAnna Scheps said the nonprofit aims to take over a “small space” in Huntington this spring while maintaining its shelter location in Wantagh.
The committee, which has been active for roughly 20 years, is responsible for fundraising for Last Hope. All money raised is directed toward special care or surgeries for animals. The money raised at the flea market will be used for Last Hope’s Fix-A-Feral program, which works to trap, neuter and return feral cats. More than 12,000 cats have been spayed and neutered since 2003 through the program.
In the past, the committee has hosted fundraising auctions at the Church of the Advent in Westbury and other locations across Nassau, Scheps said. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, those events have come to a halt. Only its flea markets, with limited capacity, have continued as of July 2020.
All the items on sale at the flea market are donations, mainly from “people who love animals,” Scheps said. The new market could be open anywhere between three to six days a week. “Once people know we’re here, they’ll come periodically just to see what new things we have,” she said. “People who love the thrill of the hunt, they love this stuff.”
Rosemarie Patterson, a Last Hope volunteer for 27 years, said she hopes the group can accumulate enough volunteers to establish a permanent home for the flea market. “If we can get enough people to support us and spend their money here, then we can do more for the animals,” she said.
All the money collected in January will allow the nonprofit to distribute 600 vouchers for community members to pay for the spaying and neutering of feral cats, Scheps said.
Last Hope, Inc. Animal Rescue & Rehabilitation is at 3300 Beltagh Ave. in Wantagh. For more information about the flea market, visit lasthopeanimalrescue.org.
