Friends of the Wake County Animal Center: Helping Pets Find Forever Homes

In this episode Sophs talks with Alicia Carlucci, founded and head of Friends of the Wake Counter Animal Center, a nonprofit that helps fund the Wake County Animal Center and find animals forever homes. They go over the different programs that the FWCAC provides to the center and how it helps to educate the community and fundraise so senior and ill animals have a chance at finding their forever home! Listen to learn how you can help find animals forever homes in wake county!!

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Creators and Guests

Host

Sophs Magnanini

What is Oak City Move?

A radio program and podcast from WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1/HD-2 celebrating those who enact positive changes in the Raleigh community.

00:00
Sophia Magnanini
Oak City Move is a podcast on WKNC's 88.1 FM HD 1 Raleigh where we highlight people and organizations creating positive change in the Triangle and beyond. Oak City Move can be heard on air every Other Monday on 88.1 FM HD1 Raleigh or online at wknc.org Listen for episodes and more information, go to our blog at blog.wknc.org or follow us on SoundCloud at wknc88.1 hello 88.1 WKNC Raleigh. The song you just heard was House of mango by surf ninja3. I'm Sophia Magnanini, your host and you're listening to Oak City Move. Today we are joined by a very special guest, Alicia Carlucci, founder and Chair of the Friends of Wake County Animal Center.

00:49
Sophia Magnanini
So first off, I just want to thank you so much for joining me and if you wanted to explain what the Friends of Wake County Animal center is for thoseeaker who may not know.

00:58
Alicia Carlucci
Yeah, awesome. First of all, thank you so much for having me this evening. I'm super excited to talk with you today. The Friends of Wake County Animal center is a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to improving the quality of life for humans for animals and their human companions right here in our awesome Wake county where we live.

01:14
Sophia Magnanini
How does the Friends of Wake County Animal center kind of differ from the Wake County Animal center itself?

01:19
Alicia Carlucci
Yeah, that's a really great question and one that I'm really glad that we're going to get a chat about because a of lot, a lot of people do think that we are the same place. The Wake County Animal center in Raleigh, North Carolina is the Wake county intake facility for all animals needing to come into animal shelter. It is also the only open intake animal shelter in Wake County. So I want to talk for a second what open intake means. A lot of people are aware that we have tons of rescue organizations here and they are by default managed intake. So they only intake animals when they have a foster home or if they are a facility based organization when they have a space. The Wake County Animal center in Raleigh, North Carolina is open intake.

02:01
Alicia Carlucci
Which means they have to take every animal no matter what they do, manage their intake by making appointments for owner surrenders. But strays. If a hundred strays come in a day, they have to take them all. So that's the county shelter itself. Our organization, the Friends of Wake County. We are a group of hardcore longtime volunteers who wanted to really find a way to help not only the animal shelter here in Wake county, but also help pet owners Here we are a nonprofit. We are not a rescue. So that's one of the first things. Like, we don't intake any animals. My organization doesn't have any animals in our care. What we do is we help support the county shelter through a variety of programs, and we try to prevent animals from going into the shelter through a variety of programs. We have no facility.

02:53
Alicia Carlucci
We basically operate. The core volunteers and our board are the ones who govern everything. But again, that's kind of the main difference is that we aren't a shelter or a rescue, but we are more of a support organization for our shelter and our community.

03:07
Sophia Magnanini
That's so great, especially because, like you're saying, the Wake County Ambulance center is one of the few that will take them no matter what. So the fact that they have that extra support from you guys is probably something that really helps and really helps a lot of animals not only get a home, but just like a second chance to have time in the shelter to possibly be adopted. Are there any, like, specific programs or initiatives that Friends of Wake County Animal center that you guys have launched recently or that is ongoing?

03:36
Alicia Carlucci
Yeah, so we have quite a few different programs. Our first and longest standing program is called Heal a Heart. Heal a Heart is our first that we started with, and it's actually one that directly helps the county shelter. So let's say you're an adopter and you come in and you fall in love with this dog, and it is heartworm positive. We know that is a big cost for people right up front, like when they adopt a dog, that is just an added cost. Adopting a pet is expensive anyway. The county shelter tries to make it as affordable as possible by covering all the big stuff, vaccinations and spay neuter. But knowing that they're going to be heartworm positive, knows there's going to be ongoing vet care to treat that condition.

04:13
Alicia Carlucci
And it needs to be treated because, untreated heartworms can unfortunately cause animal to go into heart failure. So we have a sponsorship that we will pay a new adopter's vet to help them get treated for the heartworms. So let's say you come in, you adopt a heartworm positive dog, you get our contact information, and once you're ready to treat your pet, we will actually pay that veterinarian directly a portion of what our sponsorship is. Our standard sponsorship right now is $600. It's made a really big difference because of how we see the increase in adoptions of heartworm positive dogs. And we've Gotten lots of great feedback from people that having that sponsorship has allowed them to actually adopt.

04:57
Sophia Magnanini
That is really awesome because yeah, like you were saying, it is a lot cost up front. Especially are getting a dog. A lot of people will kind of be turned off by. Not like turned off, but a lot of people. It's easier for them to get one that does. So the fact that it's opening so many doors for these pets and opportunities for them to get good families. So that's awesome. Are there any other programs?

05:17
Alicia Carlucci
Yeah, we. We have a couple other. We have our low cost spay neuter programs. We are personally are not veterinarians, but we do partner with several local vets. So members of the community can apply for a low cost spay neuter voucher through us and get their pets fixed. It's very affordable. It's the most affordable in the area outside of free. It is a small fee, but we believe that enough because we want to reduce the number of animals. We also have a rescue medical fund. That's something that we work directly with the shelter with. For instance, literally last week we just had a dog who came into the shelter who has double torn ACLs. And if anyone's been following our pages, they've been hearing about this dog named Classy and how she needs about $10,000 worth of orthopedic surgery.

06:09
Alicia Carlucci
That is not something our county shelter is able to provide. She's a great dog. She's in a great foster home. And we believe that by getting her the surgery it's going to make her adoptable. So we will do with that. We'll work with the shelter with specific medical cases. Additionally, when animals come in that may need care way above and beyond even what our organization can do, we will offer sponsorships for rescues to be able to pull some of those hospice cases, those high needs, some of those hit by car dogs that are gonna need a lot more time to recover. And we try to provide some sponsorship to help those local rescues take them.

06:44
Sophia Magnanini
That's amazing, honestly. So sweet to hear. Also that you're giving them these second chances and especially for the ones that are really in need are helping them even if it's too much, you guys are doing a lot.

06:58
Alicia Carlucci
Additionally, some other ones that are a bit more community focused. We do have a program called no Empty bowl. And that program helps support pet owners who might be facing just some difficulties financially. And we don't want them to surrender their pet. They love their pets, they're their family. But if pet food is something that they are in need of. We will help support them temporarily through like a job loss or a job transition or maybe they were super sick and they missed work for a couple weeks and their paycheck was a little bit smaller. So we do provide temporary pet food relief to families in need. And then we also have a community outreach program.

07:32
Alicia Carlucci
We have an amazing volunteer who goes out in the community and works in specific areas to talk with pet owners, to educate them and to help encourage them in situations where they might need some additional support.

07:43
Sophia Magnanini
No, that's awesome. Especially I love you just kept coming out. But that's amazing that you guys have so many different things that help the community and these pets to help get adopted and find forever homes and to keep those pets healthy in those homes. Really great. And I can only imagine how much work it is for everyone in it.

08:02
Alicia Carlucci
Yeah. One thing is that we have no paid staff. All of us, including myself, we are all volunteers. We give our time. All of our board, we're a working board. So all of us give our time free of our own will. We do not get paid. And it's based off of our board members and our volunteers who make it happen and we couldn't do it without them.

08:22
Sophia Magnanini
So nice to hear also that you guys are just doing this. Just seeing them get homes is enough for you guys and helping people and animals, which is something to admire. But I know like you're saying you guys do so much to help these, the animals from the shelter get adopted. What do you think that some people misunderstand about adopting from a shelter in the first place?

08:42
Alicia Carlucci
Yeah, that's a great question. So I've also as like I said, as a volunteer at the county shelter, I've actually been there almost 18 years as a volunteer. And so I've gotten to see kind of over time what are some of those misconceptions that people might have. And one of the ones is that all the animals are like abused or damaged in some way and that they're going to take a lot of work to become part of their family. And that's not always true. Many of the animals were just people's pets that they fell in hard times or they moved or a life change and they had to re, you know, they had to surrender their pet to the shelter.

09:17
Alicia Carlucci
And so I think that's one of the misconceptions is that the animals there are somehow like second class citizens or something that they're not, you know, the best having personally, two of my dogs came from the shelter and they were the Best pets. And they were just amazing. And I'm so glad I got the opportunity to adopt them from there, because they were just wonderful family members for us.

09:39
Sophia Magnanini
Exactly. I feel like so many people have these misconceptions, like you're saying, like, they're secondhand citizens or there might varying problems that come with them. But in reality, dogs are just like animals, and in general are just very sweet. And if you treat them right, like, they just want a chance to be loved. And so helping them, especially when they've had harder times and, like, come from that, helping get that forever home is even more meaningful than. Well, I don't want to say breeders, but in a way, sometimes.

10:09
Alicia Carlucci
And a lot of people. Actually, another misconception that's really common is that the shelter doesn't have purebred dogs, and that's actually not true at all. Right now, this very moment, we have a couple. We have a couple purebred huskies. We recently had a French bulldog there came through. We get German shepherds. We get labs, we get pugs. I mean, we get all different breeds. And of course, you know, those animals get adopted quicker than, you know, maybe like a hound or a piggy mix or something like that. But it certainly is go buy a dog from a breeder, when reality is, if they check their local shelter periodically, they might just find exactly what they're looking for.

10:52
Sophia Magnanini
Exactly. And sometimes even if they go and look and they might be thinking about getting a specific dog, and then they might meet one and play with, that isn't what they were thinking, but it becomes their forever one that they just, like, fall in love with. So it's. It's really about giving them a chance. My next question was going to be, how does your organization help animals who are harder to place, like seniors and those with medical needs. But I feel like you did kind of go into that. Do you guys have any programs or any opportunities where you help educate the community about animal welfare?

11:21
Alicia Carlucci
Yeah, so we actually will go out. We will do events. Most recently, back in the fall, we did an event out in Holly Springs where we just have like, a booth at, like, a pet festival or something like that, where we not only talk about our programs, we also talk about what the shelter does and, you know, encourage people to go there to adopt. So we do get out in the community periodically throughout the year, at least a couple times at some of these big pet events, where we'll have a booth and we'll be there to talk to people about our programs, about what we do about adopting Animals. And even we also will tell people, you know, sometimes if they're looking for a specific breed, they might say, hey, I really want a dachshund.

12:00
Alicia Carlucci
And something that we might be able to do is say, hey, you know, we actually don't have one right now at the shelter, but did you know there's a dachshund rescue in North Carolina? There's, you know, this breed rescue, there's that. So we'll also educate people on those respects. If they are someone who wants a purebred dog. There's some really great purebred rescues right here in our state that we can refer people to as well.

12:21
Sophia Magnanini
No, that's so awesome because especially it's like a purebred rescue is very different from breeders, which is also really awesome because it's like, you don't have to go and give your money to these people that might be doing things in more unethical way rather than helping dogs get a second chance at rescues and stuff like that. So that's really awesome. What is the day to day operations for volunteer?

12:46
Alicia Carlucci
So I think that would be kind of twofold because for our organization, the day to day operations is, like I said, we don't have a facility. All of us have regular, I call them real people jobs. And so a lot of us, you know, each, I will say, like my team, we chat every single day, multiple times a day. And so, you know, for us, the workload really depends on when cases come in, when we have events, when we have major things going on. Now, that also differs in the fact that the county shelter itself has a whole volunteer program. I'm a volunteer there, as well as our entire board is.

13:23
Alicia Carlucci
And so for that, it could look very different depending on what someone would like to do if they decide to volunteer at the county shelter for the Wake County Animal center, they can walk dogs, they can cuddle cats, they can be adoption counselors. They could bathe animals. They could. There's literally volunteer jobs where they just stand out front and greet people when they come to the animal center. And so if anyone is looking for volunteer opportunities, I would love to recommend the Wake County Animal center as a volunteer place.

13:50
Sophia Magnanini
I love that. And like I was saying kind of earlier, besides just fostering, I have volunteered there quite a bit couple times. And it is just such a nice space as, well, community. Like everyone there is super nice, super sweet. And it's just a great staff, great bunch of people. But I can imagine working, like you were saying, real people jobs on top of also Doing this stuff is very challenging. And are there any other, like, main challeng or challenges that you'd like to talk about that you guys have to deal with, misconceptions, lack of funding, or anything that your team's currently working to address?

14:24
Alicia Carlucci
Yeah. So naturally, every nonprofit organization is going to have the issue of funding as a nonprofit. We, like I said, we do not. Well, we don't have a facility, but we do have all these programs. And we run about a $200,000 a year budget that we spend on helping animals here in Wake County. And all of that funding doesn't come from government grants or anything like that. It's all private donors. So, for instance, like the most. The dog that we most recently did, we have been fundraising for her surgery for a couple weeks. And so fundraising is always a challenge. And of course, we always do accept donors to help our organization, but that is always going to be a challenge. And I think that's not exclusive to us. I think that's non profits in general.

15:08
Alicia Carlucci
And we try to make it clear, like on our social media pages at events, we try to tell the public the things that we do because we feel like that helps build a connection so that they feel good about the funds that they donate. And we try to show our donors, hey, here's animal that we've been helping. Here's a case we've been helping. Here's what we're doing with everything so that they know that every penny that they give to us is being utilized.

15:30
Sophia Magnanini
That's awesome because. Yeah, like you were saying earlier, I feel like for every nonprofit, it is kind of harder for the funding and the donors. But it is really great when you can see that the community, like, through volunteers and donations, that how much they care about helping the animals and helping you guys get them good homes. And so that's kind of. Even though it's super hard work, it's kind of a little bit of satisfaction. Not satisfaction, but something nice to feel like when you see the community really cares. Yeah. And for anyone who's listening right now, what are the best ways to get involved or support your mission? If there are any specific or are there any specific types of, like, items that you need right now? Donations, volunteers or fosters?

16:16
Alicia Carlucci
That's a great question. So I can kind of speak twofold both for the county shelter and for our nonprofit. Obviously, for someone who wants to give some time, I would highly encourage them to become a volunteer at the Wake County Animal center in Raleigh, North Carolina. They accept anyone who's 18 years in age and up. And so of course that would be my first recommendation for someone who wants to get some hands on volunteering, because like I said, volunteers are always needed. And I wish I could say that the number of animals is decreasing, but nationwide the number of animals in shelters is increasing. And that's due to a combination of factors currently. So volunteers are needed everywhere for our specific organization. I would say the biggest thing that we have right now is the need for funds.

17:04
Alicia Carlucci
Definitely, you know, 2025 has been challenging. I think every nonprofit is feeling that this year. Just economies, jobs, things like that. Some of our regular donors just aren't able to give in the way that they previously have. And we of course understand that, but that just makes us have to get really creative and we're good at that. I think everyone who nonprofits is good at taking nothing and turning it into something. So we have to become experts at that. We have to get creative. But certainly the biggest things would be donors. That would be the biggest thing that we need at this time. And when we say donors, sometimes people hear that and they're like, oh my God, you know, I don't have a thousand dollars to give. That's okay, dude, $5.

17:45
Alicia Carlucci
You know, if 100 people give $5, that adds up pretty quickly to help cover different things for whether it be a heartworm treatment, whether it be animal who needs surgery, whether it be a cat, a feral cat needing to be spay neutered, all of those things are things that we use those funds for.

18:04
Sophia Magnanini
And like you were saying, I think that's really important for people to understand. No matter how much you give, you're still giving and it will add up. So it's not like you have to make these huge donations at a time, but you can do little by little or even just giving every month or something like.

18:20
Alicia Carlucci
And that is definitely something. We do have an opportunity where you can become a monthly donor and you could literally give as little as $5 a month. And you know, people think, oh my God, that's nothing. But really, that is truly something. And it's small enough amount where you don't notice it coming out of your monthly budget. But if, you know, we get 100 people that do that every month, that adds up very quickly. So even if you give or if you just want to do a one time donation, we are appreciative of anything. The shelter itself, like I said, their biggest need would be the volunteer base to cuddle those cats and adoption council and visit with the animals. But for us, the biggest thing is funding, because we cannot do our programs without that funding.

19:02
Sophia Magnanini
And that's good to hear. So any listeners are listening. Hey, donate, volunteer, do it all. Because who doesn't love animals?

19:09
Alicia Carlucci
Exactly.

19:11
Sophia Magnanini
As we kind of come up towards the end of our chat, if there's one message that you wanted to listeners to take away from this interview, what would it be? Or if you wanted to add anything else after that?

19:19
Alicia Carlucci
Yeah, the biggest thing is, you know, if you've been thinking about wanting to get involved in animal welfare, animal rescue, I would definitely encourage you to do it. There's a lot of people say that they're afraid of getting involved because they think the shelter will be a sad place. And really, I want to encourage you to think the opposite way, that you have to remember that these animals, the time that you spend with them when you become a volunteer is incredibly important. You increase their happiness. You increase their happiness while they're at the shelter and their stay, and you get to help them get a new home. For us, the biggest thing I want to say for friends is that, you know, we want to continue to help support our community, and we also want to continue to help our shelter.

19:59
Alicia Carlucci
And we would appreciate anyone, if you're interested, you can follow us on quite a few different ways. We have a very active Facebook page. Friends of Wake County Animal Center. We are on Instagram. We also are on TikTok. Oh, no, I'm sorry. We're not on TikTok yet. We're not there. Our board.

20:16
Sophia Magnanini
Soon.

20:16
Alicia Carlucci
Yeah, our board. We're a little. We're a little older. We've got. We're not on TikTok yet, although we probably really should be. We need to get some folks involved to help us on there. We are on Twitter. We are on Instagram. We are on Facebook. We have a YouTube channel where we share a lot of different things that go on. And of course, we have our website [e-mail] and that's a place that you can find out about all of our programs as well as make donations.

20:43
Sophia Magnanini
Perfect. Thank you so much for coming in and talking to me about this. It's so important for the community to learn, especially that they can. What they can do to help the animal and the animal center. And so it's really awesome.

20:57
Alicia Carlucci
Thank you so much for having me. This has been a wonderful opportunity. And again, anyone who's interested in learning more, you can check us out on any of our socials and contact us with any questions.

21:07
Sophia Magnanini
And thank you for what you guys do because it really does make such a big impact and helping all these animals and it's just really amazing and awe inspiring.

21:16
Alicia Carlucci
Thank you so much. And again, thank you for the opportunity. Appreciate it.

21:20
Sophia Magnanini
Thank you all for listening to this episode of Oak City Move. If you're interested in listening to this episode again or to past episodes, you can go to wknc podcast.org and come back to listen to Oak City Move every other Monday at 9am Mondays. Yep, 9am Mondays. I'll say it again, but have a great day.