Good Mews Puts $25K Grant to Good Use

won a $25,000 grant from Southwest Airlines last month and has begun work on its new no-kill shelter on Robinson Road near Roswell Road.

The East Cobb cat shelter was one of six nonprofit winners in the LUV Grants for Good contest Southwest ran to celebrate its arrival in Atlanta. The airline, working with judges from the Georgia Center for Nonprofits, narrowed 352 entrants to 15 finalists, and online voters chose two winners each among large, medium and small entrants.

Good Mews was one of the two winners in the small category.

“All these organizations do so much to improve life in their communities, and we are so fortunate to have learned so much about them through this contest,” said Debra Benton, Southwest’s director of community relations and giving. “Southwest is proud to support the work of these organizations and the passions of the public who chose them.”

Good Mews said on its website: “When we found out the winners would be chosen by a popular vote, we knew our supporters would come through, and boy, did you!”

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The money is going to support construction of Good Mews’ new, bigger shelter in the former Pet Design location at 3805 Robinson Rd.

Good Mews won approval from the last July to turn the former pet grooming and boarding facility, zoned as an animal hospital, into its new home for up to 150 homeless cats at a time.

The Good Mews Animal Foundation bought the property at the end of July for $255,000, according to county Tax Assessor’s Office records. That office appraised the property, consisting of a 5,600-square-foot, one-story building on a 1.04-acre lot, at $744,800, but that was before the building decayed for more than a year after being foreclosed on.

Vivki Conley had paid $575,000 for the property in November 2004 but lost it five years later.

A contracting crew this past week tore the roof off the building and gutted the inside, filling at least three large trash bins with debris.

The new facility will be twice the size of Good Mews’ rented site in a shopping center at 736 Johnson Ferry Rd., where up to 100 cats are housed at any time. The new site has approval for 150 cats, pulling more felines out of the Cobb County Animal Control shelter; if things go well, Good Mews could return to the county and seek permission to grow to 200 cats.

You can support Good Mews by participating as a donor or shopper in its , the foundation’s biggest fundraiser, which starts Friday and runs through May 13 at the , 2145 Roswell Rd.

The flea market is open Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. the next five weekends.