ATLANTA, GA – (July 28, 2025) The Rotary Club of Buckhead has announced a three-year partnership with LifeLine Animal Project to support LifeLine’s mission to end shelter euthanasia of healthy and treatable dogs and cats.
Each year, the Rotary Club of Buckhead starts a new three-year project with a deserving nonprofit. New club President Shelley Hammell selected LifeLine as the club’s 2025-26 project, the “Pawsitivity Partnership,” and said she’s passionate about the impact it can have.
“Rotary International promotes programs that focus on family, friends and the community at large,” said Hammell. “Our three-year signature project embodies this spirit and will help us make an even greater impact in our community through the potential for increased volunteer participation.”
Owning pets also improves people’s mental health, an important consideration at a time when we are more isolated and alone than ever before.
“Our pets are family, and our profound connection with them boosts our mental well-being,” Hammell said.
The partnership also perfectly fits this year’s Rotary International theme, Unite for Good, she said.
Founded in 2002, LifeLine is now the largest animal welfare organization in Georgia and a national leader. Since it started the number of dogs and cats euthanized in metro Atlanta has dropped from 100,000 a year to just 2,000, LifeLine Founder and CEO Rebecca Guinn told the club.
LifeLine took over management of the two largest open intake shelters and animal control services in Fulton in 2013. It has transformed the way metro Atlanta cares for animals in need and made significant changes in animal welfare.
“But Georgia still has a pet overpopulation problem,” said Guinn, “and we are happy to have the support of the Rotary Club of Buckhead, in funding and in volunteers, as we work to vaccinate, spay and neuter more animals and help them find homes.”
LifeLine spays and neuters 96 animals, does 319 vaccinations and sees volunteers work 111 hours every day. LifeLine has 3,504 animals in its care, including 1,511 in shelters and 1,993 in foster care.
The Rotary Club of Buckhead is in its second year working with Shepherd Center and its third year with The Boyce L. Ansley School, which teaches unhoused students.
