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Scituate Animal Shelter collecting homemade joey pouches to send to Australia

SCITUATE, Mass. — A South Shore animal shelter is doing its part to help Australian wildlife devastated by wildfires.

Typically, the Scituate Animal Shelter’s focus is on dogs and cats, but last week, staffers added helping kangaroos to their list.

“We knew if we put some type of call out for help, our supporters would come through, which is exactly what happened,” said executive director MaryAnn Regan.

Joey Pouches for Australia

We called and wow, did you answer! We are amazed by this community's support for our friends in Australia and know you have made a difference in helping the amazing rescue groups. Donations came in from all over and in many different ways. A local school, Over the Moon Parenting, brought in a one of a kind sign along with the Joey pouches they were able to make. All the pouches were boxed up and ready to go. Several sewing groups hunkered down for the weekend together sewing pouches. We had many updates to our Facebook post with status updates on how the pouches were coming along. It was so heartwarming reading all the updates. We also received monetary donations to help with shipping costs. And to those who helped with sharing our initial post, it received so much attention which also helped spread the word on our efforts. Thank you to each and everyone of you! #sas #scituateanimalshelter #helpaustralia #joeypouches #sassupportersrock #necn #fox25 #watd

Posted by Scituate Animal Shelter of Massachusetts on Friday, January 17, 2020

The shelter began collecting handmade joey pouches for baby kangaroos who have lost their mothers to devastating Australian brush fires.

The joeys spend nine months in their mother’s pouches. “They are essential for the developmental purposes, absolutely essential,” said Regan.

The handmade pouches come in all different versions, some even have a strap for rescue workers to wear while carrying the baby kangaroos.

The shelter has already shipped out more than 200 joey pouches to Australia, all of them sewed by people in the community.

“They came from all over Massachusetts, locally, South Shore, and beyond,” said Regan. “It’s just horrible to watch. Entire species have almost been wiped out from what I understand. When something bad happens to this level of animals I think we’re all responsible for helping and we’re glad to do it.”

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