What PETA Staff Asked for Instead of Wedding and Birthday Gifts May Melt Your Heart

As my wife, Katherine, and I planned our wedding last fall, we encountered that proverbial stress over some finer details. How do we serve vegan paella, work in special dances, cut our cake, and give our loved ones time to toast without turning the reception into a strictly timed military drill? Would the priest let me and my best man wear vegan Birkenstocks? How on Earth are we going to pull all the last-minute work off without losing our minds?

But aside from saying “I do” to Katherine, one of the easiest—and most joyous—parts of the experience was asking our family and friends to forgo gifts to us in favor of sponsoring a massive spay/neuter event in an underserved area of Virginia.

Neither of us is particularly tech-savvy, but in just minutes, PETA’s user-friendly tool helped us set up our fundraiser. And as our big day approached—and in the weeks that followed—our loved ones’ generous donations overwhelmed us. After getting home, adopting Copper (our first dog), and catching up with our cats, Helen, Ezekiel, and Grappa, we turned to our coworker Thomas McNulty, who is PETA’s veterinary and field outreach specialist.

Thomas had raised money to underwrite three sterilization events in memory of beloved cats he had rescued in his native Gloucester, Virginia, and for his birthday in 2024. We wanted our loved ones’ gifts to help animals in Gloucester—and we knew that Thomas, who spends part of every week working as a licensed veterinary technician on PETA’s spay/neuter clinics, would help make that happen.

He did us one better and celebrated his birthday by raising even more money for this burgeoning spay/neuter marathon. Then he singlehandedly found all those interested in sterilizing their animals and arranged their appointments.

Before sunrise on a recent Friday, more than a dozen veterinarians, veterinary technicians, assistants, and others—including Katherine and me—headed to Gloucester County Animal Control, where three of PETA’s massive mobile sterilization clinics set up shop for a 13-hour operation.

Here and there, Thomas took a break from orchestrating the massive undertaking to catch a breath:

Despite dark skies all day and heavy rain, spirits were high as dozens of guardians lined up early to check their animals in:

As some of our colleagues were out transporting 14 animals from their homes to their appointments and back, Katherine—a fieldworker with our Community Animal Project—logged as many (waterlogged) steps as Thomas, shuttling between three clinics and meeting our guests, like this handsome fella:

Gloucester County Animal Control’s staff didn’t just host the event—they toiled in the rain from sunrise to past sunset, checking animals in, directing traffic, helping animals recover from anesthesia, and delivering them back to their beloved families’ arms and dry vehicles:

When all was said and done around 8 p.m., an astonishing 161 dogs and cats had been sterilized—and vaccinated and microchipped, for free—including these individuals:

And Gloucester’s animal guardians paid our loved ones’ kindness and generosity forward, donating hundreds of pounds of dog and cat food. The donations took up so much room in Thomas’ van that PETA’s doghouse truck—which Katherine and I had used to deliver five custom-made doghouses earlier in the day—was needed to haul clinic supplies back to our Norfolk headquarters, the Sam Simon Center, at the close of day.

Why Communities Need Our Mobile Clinics

The rising cost of services and high demand have made it difficult or impossible for many Virginians—especially in underserved areas—to have their animal companions spayed or neutered.

Shelters in Virginia and across the country are bursting at the seams with homeless animals, while many more cats and dogs struggle to survive on the streets, where they’re vulnerable to traffic, weather extremes, attacks from other animals or cruel humans, diseases, infections, and other deadly dangers.

YOU Can Help PETA ‘Fix’ the Problem

An estimated 70 million cats and dogs are homeless in the U.S. right now. It’s humans’ responsibility to curb this ongoing crisis, in part by having their animal companions “fixed.” This routine, affordable surgery prevents a lifetime of suffering for countless cats and dogs.

Written by Daniel Paden