Dallas City Wire

A Dallas County animal rescue group is looking forward to showing off its newly renovated facility later this month, the organization's CEO said during a recent interview.

"We're extremely excited," Operation Kindness CEO Ed Jamison told the Dallas Express. "July 29 is our official grand opening of the entire facility to the public where we've been doing things virtually and by appointments."

Operation Kindness, a homeless pet rescue organization with its shelter at 3201 Earhart Drive in Carrollton, is now in its 45th year. A grand opening is scheduled from 10 to 11:30 a.m. with planned events including a ribbon cutting, tour and trail donation.

The pandemic isn't over yet – perhaps not by a shot – but Operation Kindness is looking forward to a time "when we're able to have people wanting to adopt, they're able to just to come to the door and be able to come into the shop," Jamison said. 

He said it's been a challenging time. 

"But I'm really, really proud of the team, proud of the board and proud of our stakeholders and supporters for sticking with us to navigate through these tough times. And we think we're coming out of it pretty good," Jamison said.

Operation Kindness was founded decades ago, before Jamison's time with organization, but the memory of the early founders' work remains.

"I know that it was started by some very passionate animal lovers who just wanted to start helping animals in the North Texas area," Jamison said. "And they were all foster based at that time and then over the years ended up moving to this property here in Carrollton."

The no-kill facility's expansion was completed this year and now is "this great organization that it is today," with more than 90 staff members and thousands of adoptions every year, Jamison said. Operation Kindness provides assistance to animals who need medical care, companionship – as well as homes – to otherwise homeless pets. Operation Kindness manages a foster program, pet food pantry, surrender prevention program, education for "pet parents" and volunteer opportunities.

Operation Kindness is a partner in the BISSELL Pet Foundation National Shelter Alliance and has connections with other organizations.

"It's upwards of $7 million a year to operate," Jamison said.

Donations are a very important part Operation Kindness and its mission to care and find "furever" homes for the pets in its care.

"It all takes money," Jamison said. "Kind of our bread and butter is trying to provide advanced medical care for animals that our partners might need help with."

Raising money and caring for homeless pets has been quite a challenge for Operation Kindness during the still ongoing pandemic.

"It's kind of been a perfect storm of tough situations here. Construction started on the renovations about three years ago," Jamison said. "So, that disrupted operations. And then COVID hit, obviously, in early 2020. It's been pretty rough navigating around."

Overcoming those challenges has been part of who and what Operation Kindness has been, growing as an organization and as people serving homeless pets, Jamison said.

"We're actually looking for more challenging animals that will help the bigger picture of life saving, not just in north Texas but all over the state, as opposed to a little 10-pound fluffy dog who's ready to go," Jamison said. "We would rather get a dog that one of our partners picked up that was hit by a car that we've got the ability to do the surgeries on, get patched up and then get it adopted. So, it's really shown some resilience that we can do the hard work and look for those animals that need us the most."