Nonprofit veterinary clinic left in the heat in need of donations

The nonprofit Emancipet Austin had to shut its surgery room down because their old A/C unit went out.

AUSTIN, Texas - Several veterinary physicians and technicians squeezed into Emancipet Austin’s mobile unit to perform more than 30 surgeries on Wednesday. The nonprofit had to shut its surgery room down because their old A/C unit went out.

"If anyone wants to pray for a cold front to come through I think now would be the time to do that because I think it'll take a couple of days to get this fixed," Amy Mills, CEO of Emancipet, said. "We kind of had to scramble, we had to figure out what is wrong with the air conditioner, we had to diagnose the problem what we found out was there are pretty significant problems."

Emancipet's oldest clinic sits in East Austin offering low-cost veterinary services to families who need assistance. The buildings are more than ten years old and Mills said maintenance has been difficult this year.

A couple of months ago, Emancipet had to buy a new generator for their mobile unit and repair a deck that was falling apart and now an estimated $20,000 A/C unit.

"When we have an emergency like this those donations do help buy a new air-condition unit,” Mills said. “What it really does is allows us to use our funds in the way that we want which is by providing low veterinary services."

In the meantime, Emancipet is operating their pet healthy services out of one of their main buildings still kicking. The nonprofit averages about 150,000 pet visits a year.

Mills said about 80 percent of their running costs comes from low client fees and the other 20 percent comes from donations. So far Mills said they’ve received $8,000 donations with $12,000 to go.

To learn more about how to help, visit Emancipet's website.