New home for the holidays

Austin Pets Alive and Austin Animal Center launch $31 pet adoptions for the holidays

Lucy is an Austin Pets Alive! alumni. You can adopt dogs just like her for just $31 this month.

Photo by Hannah J. Frías

Two Austin organizations are looking to get local pets into their "furever" homes this holiday season. In a special December promotion, Austin Pets Alive! (APA) and Austin Animal Center are working to get as many animals out of the shelter as possible, by making all adoption fees a flat $31.

The promotion runs December 1-31. According to a release, APA's director of lifesaving operations, Stephanie Bilbro, sees this as a great opportunity to clear out the shelters and make a great impact heading into 2023.

“The holidays are a great time for the Austin community to come together and add to their families. We have so many precious kittens, puppies, cats, and dogs just waiting for their turn to find a family,” said Bilbro. “We hope this is a chance for any family who’s been looking to add a pet to theirs to do so right in the middle of the holiday season. We know Austin is in the upper echelon when it comes to animal welfare. We hope this promo sets us and AAC up for a successful end to 2022 and a fast start going into 2023.”

Both shelters are also seeking fosters and volunteers throughout the holiday season, for Austinites looking to help the shelters without making a long-term commitment.

APA has two locations, one at 1156 W. Cesar Chavez St., and one in Tarrytown (3118 Windsor Rd.). Both locations operate 12-6 pm daily, except Christmas Eve (12-4 pm), Christmas Day (closed), and New Year’s Eve (12-4 pm). The Austin Animal Center is located at 7201 Levander Loop and is open every day from 11 am-7 pm for adoptions. For holiday hours, AAC will be closing at 5 pm on December 23 and will be closed December 24-26.

More Foraging

Free 'food forest' in East Austin expands with thousands of new plants

Angelina Alanis at Festival Beach Food Forest

Photo courtesy of KVUE

Angelina Alanis gives a tour of the garden, which is open to anyone.

In East Austin, there is an edible forest garden called Festival Beach Food Forest where anyone can walk around and harvest free produce, nuts, medicinal plant leaves and herbs. And over the summer, it grew to several times its size.

The forest has fig trees, peach trees, grapevines, asparagus and more that's not in season right now. You can grab passionfruit and plants like yaupon holly, with leaves that can make a caffeinated tea, rosemary and lemon balm.

"[Lemon balm] is part of the mint family," said Angelina Alanis, communication and partnership coordinator for Festival Beach Food Forest. "It has a lemony taste but it's good for a nervous stomach. I'm prone to anxiety so I always grab a hunk."

The food forest is located right next to Interstate 35 and Lady Bird Lake on 29 Waller St., near a part of town that's known for being a food desert, lacking grocery stores.

"There's as much as a 20-year life expectancy difference between parts of East and West Austin, and a lot of that comes down to food access, health care access and also access to nature."

Alanis said for the past nine years, the volunteer-based grassroots project been helping with the issue and just recently expanded in the summer from two-thirds of an acre of city parkland to over 3.5 acres.

"We're going to have hundreds of new trees," said Alanis. "We've already planted 150 new trees in the area and then thousands of plants on the ground."

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They also plan to add a community kitchen and a pavilion to do things like cooking classes or informational sessions.

Read the full story at KVUE.com.

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