Who We Are

The Darbster Foundation is a 501(c) 3 that concentrates its resources on animal welfare, on a community level.  Our primary goal is to reduce the number of animals euthanized in Palm Beach County. When the restaurant, “Darbster”, opened in 2009, the Foundation was formed. 100% of all profits from Darbster Food go toward The Darbster Foundation. The Foundation now has two adoption facilities in New Hampshire. In 2014, Darbster Kitty was opened in Manchester, New Hampshire to facilitate the rescue, transport and adoption of kitties.  Darbster Doggy, which is located in Chichester, New Hampshire, is scheduled to open this summer.  Both these facilities offer boarding services with a portion of the fees going to help support further rescue efforts.  Our goal is to make Darbster Foundation a self-supporting entity by operating profitable entities, funding 100% of the operating expenses.  We are not there yet but getting closer each year.
 

Founders Ellen Quinlan (Executive Director) and Alan Gould in Watkins Glen

Yesenia Perez
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West Palm Beach Foster Manager, pictured with her husband

Megan Diede has worked in the pet care industry for over 12 years now. She started off cleaning kennels at a vet hospital in Colorado and worked her way up to becoming a vet assistant. She has worked and volunteered at several vet facilities, humane societies, no-kill shelters, and zoos. Even though she has worked with animals of all shapes, sizes, and species – she has found a special connection with dogs and cats.
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​Along with vet tech certifications, she also has taken dog behavior courses and is an avid believer in positive reinforcement. She hopes to one day open her own shelter that takes in pups with a high kill rate, especially bully breeds.

Megan Diede
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​Operations Manager

Stephanie Audette
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​Daytime Facility Manager

Stephanie has worked with animals for the past two years. She started as a receptionist, and worked her way up to vet assistant, and then vet tech. She spent the last year working at another animal shelter, primarily with cats. Stephanie loves all animals but decided that she wanted to be an advocate for cats especially. Stephanie would love to continue working with animal shelters for the rest of her life, and hopes to be able to find homes for many cats in need!

Kelly Pellegrino
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​Community Outreach Coordinator

Kelly has been an animal lover from day 1, but never knew she could morph her passion for animals into a career until working at Darbster. Kelly is instrumental in maintaining active and strong relationships between partner stores, in addition to planning adoption events and marketing for Darbster. She also manages foster and volunteer activities throughout New Hampshire. In the future, Kelly strives to become an animal welfare activist on a macro level.

This Year

2018 has been a tremendous year for the Darbster Foundation.  Our efforts have been concentrated on the rescue and transport of highly adoptable kitties and dogs out of overcrowded conditions in South Florida to areas in New England where demand is significantly stronger.  A tremendous help to this effort has been our partnerships with other rescue organizations in the New England area: Salem Animal Rescue League (SARL), Humane Society & Shelter South Coast, Standish Humane Society and the Ellen M. Gifford Cat Shelter to name a few. 

Utilizing both our own adoption facility in Manchester and the facilities of our partner rescue organizations, kitty transport is proceeding at a record pace.   At mid-year, an average of 66 kitties per month were transported to Darbster Kitty and an additional 75 kitties per month to our partner shelters.  In 2017, Darbster Kitty transported and found homes for over 1100 kitties.  By mid- 2018, transports had already totaled 844. 

This year, over 60 dogs have been pulled from overcrowded shelters in South Florida and transported north, primarily to SARL.  We expect this number to increase with the upcoming opening of our own shelter, Darbster Doggy.

Additionally, we continue our Healing Hearts Program at the Animal Care and Control facility in West Palm Beach.  Instead of heart worm positive dogs being euthanized they are adopted out and treated with funds raised by the Darbster foundation.
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The Foundation also sponsors spay/neuter surgeries and medical care of community animals.   We have sponsored the spay/neuter surgeries of over 2,000 community animals and assisted with the medical care of an additional 50+ community animals.



 

With 15 years experience as a small animal veterinarian in New Hampshire, Heather Manning was excited for the opportunity to do her part in helping the kitties and dogs traveling from FL to NH find their forever homes. She started at Darbster Kitty in early 2018 and at Darbster Doggy when it opened in late 2018.
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After they have acclimated to their new but temporary homes, Dr. Manning examines each cat and dog to make sure they are in good condition for adoption. 
Heather has been an animal lover as long as she could talk and is a self-proclaimed “cat-person”, having (only) 3 at home! However, she takes great enjoyment in getting to know the lovable and sometimes goofy “pups” that are lucky enough to come to Darbster Doggy.  

Dr. Heather Manning
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​ Darbster Kitty & Darbster Doggy's Veterinarian.

DARBSTER FOUNDATION'S PRIVACY POLICY
Darbster Foundation  (AKA Darbster Kitty) is committed to your right to privacy and to keeping your personal information private. You can visit Darbster Kitty's web site without telling us who you are or revealing any identifying information about yourself.

This Privacy Policy governs the URL http://www.darbsterkitty.com. This web site is owned and operated by Darbster Foundation and was created  for the benefit of the general public, the animals we seek to rescue and other visitors interested in Darbster Foundation's mission and operations.
Darbster Foundation reserves the right to modify or amend this Privacy Policy at any time and for any reason.