Many Ways to Help Spread the Word About Leo

Right now we're in a situation where we don't have Leo's location pinpointed to even a neighborhood or community, or if he's in the city of Alexandria v Arlington County, or moving between the two, nor do we know if he has been taken in by someone. But since he has tags, we hope he hasn't either lost them or been taken in by someone who is ignoring the tags that will bring him home.

To me this means that we need to rely on spreading the word far and wide -- so that anyone who has seen him or contained him, or who does so in the future, knows who is looking for him and who to contact. This can be done with: fliers, etc; direct mail campaigns; media campaigns like radio bulletins and stories in local papers and on the TV news; and virtual posting on the internet. We need help -- a lot of it -- to accomplish these.

Fliers -- my personal feeling is that the best use of fliering time is to hit commerce areas and put 1/4 page fliers on windshields. And this can be done over and over. People will leave these shopping areas and go anywhere and everywhere. Any commerce areas between Quaker Lane and Route 1 are good for this. Can you do some of this? The 4-to-a-page fliers are downloadable from the menu at right. If you can and/or do this, please post a comment to the blog. This isn't for just today; it's for every day until Leo is brought to safety or at least until we begin getting sighting notices.

Direct mail -- this means emailing the flier to anyone and everyone. Can you push the flier out to everyone you know in the northern Virginia area (individuals, businesses, listservs for any types of organizations, Yahoo group owners, etc)? Please put the blog address in the body of every email! Or if you can send email addresses for us to send the email out (to avoid duplication), you can send it to my email, below my signature. The email addresses you send will be used as a bcc and only for a one-time mailing of the Leo flier. They won't be shared with anyone.

Media -- we need to pull together a press release that will catch the attention of people with the local papers and radio and TV stations that decide what gets printed and aired, AND to develop a list of email addresses for those individuals, AND to conduct follow up calls after the press release is sent (meaning we need the phone numbers too). Can you help with composing the press release, collecting the email addresses and phone list for it, or making the follow-up calls? To do this, it doesn't matter where you live; living nearby isn't necessary to help out in this way.

Virtual posting -- this means visiting the assorted missing pet sites with formats such as classified advertising or bulletin boards to post the notice about Leo. I have a list of about 30 such sites which could be divvied up among different volunteers so that it can get done quickly. This is a good job for people who want to support Leo's foster parents but don't live in the area or can't be available on site to flier or search.

Also in the category of spreading the word --

Notifying area animal hospitals -- there are a ton of them, and those with email addresses can be covered in the direct mail campaigns. Those without them need the flier delivered or snail mailed. Who can help with that? Email me, please.

Who can think of other ways to spread the word about Leo and his plight? Then as for searching for Leo, we can't suggest where to search that he might be encountered wandering, but there are obvious places that he can be searched in the event that he has been contained, by anyone:

Checking the shelters -- In addition to spreading the word, Leo's foster parents need help checking the local shelters, which really should be done daily if possible -- and there are at least two shelters that need to be checked: Arlington and Alexandria. Are you in a position to commit to one visit of one shelter, or more? Best if we have a team of folks sharing the load for these visits.

Virtual tracking -- The list of missing pet websites I mentioned above are sites for both posting notices that Leo is missing, and checking to see if he's been taken in by someone. The preference would be for the checking to be done daily until Leo is recovered, so a team of volunteers for this means that no one has too much to do every day, or doesn't need to check every day. Who wants to be a part of this team? You can live anywhere and have only odd hours of availability for this.

So much to do, so little time. Remember, "it takes a village" applies here. Leo's foster parents, Hilary and Jeremiah, can't do it all, so they need YOUR help. Everyone doing just a task or two will make it possible to bring Leo back.

Nancy Despeaux
TesterDesp@aol.com