
Interview with Kimball Kiess, President and Founder, of YC Community Pet Heroes or YCPH in McMinnville
Tell us a bit about your Nonprofit?
What does your Nonprofit offer, and how long have you been around?
We officially became a nonprofit on August 7, 2017. Unfortunately, we started out with grander thoughts of what we would be able to do (helping every animal seen lose in Yamhill County). In March of 2018 we saw that we were exhausted and needed to reorganize our focus. We continued to help behind the scenes with scanning, trapping and reuniting pets. Slowly, we regrouped and decided our focus would be fostering, surrenders, 10-day quarantines, trapping, foster to adopt, chip readers to scan pets, pet holds until owners are found, trapping for scared and running animals, and provide community members and their pets funding to assist with veterinary bills, pet food, euthanasia, chipping, impound fees, pet supplies and spaying/neutering.

How did you decide to get involved as a volunteer? How did the Nonprofit get started?
Most people who volunteer in pet rescue have been motivated at a very young age to help animals. I think almost every volunteer has been helping animals way before YCPH was ever conceived…or at least have a great love of animals.
Having Yamhill County Dog Control change to an office position only was really the main reason we started the Nonprofit. We saw such a need in the community.
Tell us a couple things you are proud of about your Nonprofit. What are you known for?
Each volunteer has one or two stories that really tugged at their hearts. But, in the end we as volunteers are proud that we were able to make pets lives better.
With the love of animals, you get a cross section of people with a lot of differences, but we work together for the love of animals.
What is your favorite part of running this Nonprofit?
The animals!
Who is your ideal customer/client? Who do you serve best?
Our founder Kimball Kiess is a master at trapping running and scared pets. Our “ideal customer” is an abandoned animal who finds their perfect furever home.
Is there any other information you’d like your potential customers/clients to know about your Nonprofit?
Our adoption fee is based on the actual cost to get the pet adoptable. We asked all potential adopters to fill out an adoption questionnaire and have a home visit. YC Community Pet Heroes main pet adoption goal is to find loving homes.
How do you see your Nonprofit growing and improving over the next couple of years?
More volunteers! More foster homes!
Educating the community on how dog control and dog licenses are working and making improvements to benefit our dogs. To educate the community how important it is to chip your pet and keep your information registered and updated and have that information on their collar or tags. To give guidelines on what to do with a lost or found pets.
For more information about YC Community Pet Heroes visit their Keep It Local Mac profile page HERE