Four years ago, Honduran Ambassador Sofia Cerrato and her two sons decided to adopt a dog and what followed was a long-time devotion to the Ottawa-based Freedom Dog Rescue and its work.
“When we decided to adopt a dog, we started looking into rescue organizations and we ended up adopting two little girls,” Cerrato says. “After that, we decided to support any activities they were doing.”
Alexandro, her younger son, started volunteering on weekends for any activities Freedom Dog Rescue held, including adoption drives and fundraisers, such as photos-with-Santa events at Christmas.
“During the pandemic, everyone was struggling for funding,” Cerrato says. “They started asking on social media for bottle donations, so we went out and collected bottles and I invited my colleagues to help us all to collect some bottles, too, and we were able to donate them all to the Freedom Dog Rescue.”
They also raised some money for Ottawa’s Little Ray’s Nature Centre, the largest animal rescue in Canada, specialized in reptiles over the years. Its website says it also boasts an award-winning live travelling museum exhibit program, which it tours for birthday parties and children’s events in the region.
“We decided to organize a bottle drive and we collected a lot of bottles for them,” Cerrato says.
The family has continued to organize bottle drives for Freedom Dog Rescue, too. In addition, because the Ottawa Diplomatic Association couldn’t do its annual ball last year, Cerrato asked some embassies that had contributed items for the silent auction if she could pass them on to the Freedom Dog Rescue for its silent auction fundraiser to rescue 100 dogs from the Caribbean and bring them to Canada. All said yes.
And, at the end of June, Cerrato was organizing what might be the first of many backyard “puppy yoga” fundraisers. Because of continuing COVID restrictions, they had to keep the group small, but were still able to have some fun while raising money for the rescue.
