Hi friends and family. As many of you know, Sara and I purchased a veterinary clinic in Southern Nicaragua, Seaside Clinica Veterinaria. Seaside is located in the amazing community of San Juan Del Sur. Seaside is a small, full service veterinary clinic that supports an animal rescue, SOS Animales Nicaragua.

Seaside is a labor of love for Sara and I. We stepped in to take over the clinic at a time when it was vulnerable to closure. It’s the only veterinary clinic in a very large region. We service a huge area and many animals, both owned and rescued. Seaside is a critical community resource. It’s also very close to our hearts as we discovered the clinic after we found our prior rescue, Macie, when we were living in SJDS back in 2022. When we learned that it was at risk of closing, Sara and I just couldn’t let that happen. Macie passed at the end of January, this year, and we are trying to honor her life, memory and legacy through the clinic. We have since rescued another old street dog, Miley. We’re doing this for Macie, Miley and all of their fur friends and family in Nicaragua!

We have funded the purchase of the clinic out of our own pockets. We expect nothing out of the clinic other than to make sure that it remains available to service the community and to provide the best veterinary care that it can to as many animals as possible.

Since taking it over, we’ve put a lot of money into the clinic, including obtaining new equipment and supplies. Thanks to the generosity of many of you, we were able to offset just shy of half of the cost of an ultrasound machine for the clinic (thank you again to all who donated!!!). That help allowed Sara and I to invest more in other areas of the clinic.

We have invested significantly in new lab equipment, new surgical equipment, and much more. But Sara and I can only do so much and we are at a point where we need some help.

We are looking to raise a not-insignificant amount of money. Sara and I are looking to raise $15,000.00. This money will go to many different areas of the clinic. For example, we were able to get a new IDEXX blood testing machine donated. It’s a $14,000 piece of equipment, however, IDEXX Central America is requiring us to purchase a protection plan at $3500 in order to be able to use the machine, which we don’t have. We’ve had this piece of equipment for a few months now and are unable to use it to service the community. This piece of equipment will allow our vets to run very specific tests on animals to be able to more accurately diagnose a wide array of internal issues that we can’t currently do.

We also need to provide a major renovation to the clinic, OR move to a new location. Our current space is just too small for both the clinic and also the rescue. It could work, but we need to do a major overhaul if we remain in our current location. We need to build out the backyard and install kennel systems. We need to also enclose the clinic as parts are open air and this creates an environment that allows dust and other contaminants in. Since we do a large amount of surgeries, this is a real concern. We recently found an AMAZING new location that would have been perfect for us as well as the rescue, but Sara and I couldn’t afford to move, financially.

Sara and I are also looking to create an emergency fund where we can help support local families who can’t afford care for their pets (the average income locally is $75 per week, which makes even subsidized care for many families, out of reach). We try to subsidize these situations the best we can now, but it requires us to divert funds from elsewhere. We also want to help use this emergency fund to provide for SOS Animales when they are short on funds as they are purely donation driven. This month Seaside may not be able to host the monthly puppy spay and neuter clinic that SOS Animales provides to the community, as they don’t have enough in donations at the moment to cover the reduced cost for the community, and we can’t subsidize any more than we are already doing. Bottom line, we need help.

This clinic is not a money making venture for us and it never will be. The clinic is located in an area where there is a lot of poverty and a real need for the service we provide. Sara and I are putting everything we can into the clinic, but we need the help of our friends and family, if you can. Any amount will help. It doesn’t matter how large or how small. Any amount will make a difference.

Sara and I have already had some significant success. When we took over the clinic, it wasn’t self sustaining. It currently is, but that’s just the clinic meeting its basic financial obligations. As I said, any investment comes out of our own pockets.

Please consider helping. Any amount will help tremendously. Please also consider sharing this with your extended network of family and friends. We would also ask that you like and follow our Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/share/19pDMRbofd/?mibextid=wwXIfr) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/seaside.clinica.vet?igsh=MXhuc3kzcjA1MGc1bw==) pages. The more reach we have the better. Thank you in advance.