Southeast Nebraska animal rescue helping communities affected by Hurricane Milton

MURRAY, Neb. (WOWT) - Joy Bartling is the founder of Scatter Joy Acres, an animal rescue therapy ranch in Murray, Neb.

When it comes to helping out animals, Bartling never turns down the offer.

“Animals can’t make choices to fend for themselves," Bartling said. “They rely on humans to take care of them.”

She’s been rounding up supplies such as cat litter and horse feed. She will send a truck down with donations to animal shelters, farms, and those with pets impacted by Hurricane Milton.

“Just being able to help those animals because I know what we do here,” Bartling said. “We use our animals to do therapy with our people, so those people need those animals to get through what they’re going through."

Bartling is no stranger to helping out those impacted by natural disasters. She’s been apart of the United States national response team for seven years.

“We’ve been to New Orleans three or four times to hurricanes,“ Bartling said. ”One other time taken supplies to Florida and when the floodwaters in Omaha came through we helped pull animals out of the flood waters.“

The animal rescue is hoping to fill their 24 foot trailer by October 17th to take to Florida by next weekend. Scatter Joy Acres is taking donations for various animal supplies until Thursday.

Even though they’ve gotten a lot of supplies, they still need more.

“A lot of the feed and everything is ruined and it’s not like you can go up to the tractor supply store and get what you need," Bartling said. “As a community that’s our job to give back to others in other parts in the world to ease some of that tension and stress that we have.“

For those looking to donate, you can donate to Scatter Joy Acres or there is donation box outside of Pyramid Roofing in Omaha at 5532 Center St.

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