Cedar Rapids Animal Care and Control is the beneficiary of the Friends Helping Friends Foundation, but the organizations are separate entities.
The Cedar Rapids Animal Care and Control is an 'open admission' shelter with a small staff and a corps of volunteers who help care for more than 3,000 animals per year. We accept all animals brought to us from the City of Cedar Rapids and Marion. We work collaboratively with foster and rescue teams to ensure that our animals are either reunited with their owners or are placed in new, loving homes.
Cedar Rapids Animal Control was founded in 1958. The first shelter opened in 1959 at the home of Charles A. Lockhart on Otis Road. The shelter was relocated in 1981 to an abandoned sewage treatment facility on Cedar Bend Lane, where it remained until late Spring of 2008 when the shelter was destroyed in the flood. Every animal was saved, and an emergency animal shelter was established at Kirkwood Community College until the temporary shelter was leased on North Towne Lane NE in November of 2008. A new Program Manager was hired in October 2009 to oversee shelter operations, animal control enforcement, and the new shelter building project.
More than 5 years after the 2008 flood destroyed the Animal Control shelter on Cedar Bend Lane, the Cedar Rapids Animal Care and Control Center (CRACC) moved to a new facility on the Kirkwood College Campus. With just over 14,000 square feet, the new facility has 43 kennel runs, 124 cat cages and 3 communal cat rooms, and includes separation of space for quarantine holds, isolation, stray hold and adoption hold for both species. The building also has adequate drainage and ventilation systems to reduce the risk of disease, a fully equipped surgical suite, outdoor exercise runs for the dogs, and has a much more animal and public friendly environment.
The project was funded with $1M from FEMA and $3.55M of Local Option Sales Tax funds, and includes a 900 square foot Kirkwood training room.