Kiehl’s not only wants to shoppers to adopt the latest cosmetic styles, but possibly a new best friend.
The Kiehl’s store in Santa Monica is host to k9 connection’s pet adoption program for the city’s shelter rescue dogs on the second Sunday of every month. Six k9 volunteers arrived at the cosmetics store on Sept. 10 with four dogs wearing orange-and-black adopt-a-dog jackets, looking for a home on Montana Avenue.
“It’s been very popular with our customers, who keep asking when the next adoption event is scheduled,” said Tammy Smalls, Kiehl’s Santa Monica store manager, an animal lover who exhibits Persian cats. “Kiehl’s has always supported animals in local communities everywhere.” K9 connection regularly holds two-hour adoption outreach training classes for volunteers who will then walk the individual abandoned rescue dogs to public places and parks to find someone willing to give the pets a new home.
“I’ve been doing it for eight months,” said volunteer Mary Beth Macaluso, who has two shelter dogs. “I walk the dogs along Main Street. They are so happy to get out and about.”
Adoption outreach is an adjunct of k9 connection’s more comprehensive three-week program for at-risk 12-to-16-year-old youth in local schools, training homeless shelter dogs in basic obedience and teaching the troubled teenagers to apply the same lessons they teach the dogs to their own lives. For more information call (310) 264-5424 or visit www.k9connection.org.
K9 connection is one of OPCC’s (formerly Ocean Park Community Center’s) 10 social service programs on eight sites in Santa Monica, including Access Drop-In Center, Campion Mental Health Center, Daybreak Center & Shelter, Night Light, SAMOSHEL, Safe Haven, Sojourn Battered Women’s Center, Swashlock and Turning Point Transitional Housing, aiding more than 10,000 homeless and low-income men, women, at-risk teens and children each year toward self-sufficiency. For more information call (310) 264-6646 or visit www.opcc.net.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 22, 2006. Read the original PDF.