Amigos held our annual meeting on February 9, during which the board approved the minutes of the previous year’s meeting and the treasurer’s summary of income and expenses in 2025, reviewed our accomplishments during 2025, and set several goals for 2026. In addition, board members whose two-year terms had expired agreed to continue serving for another term, and Victoria Wagner, joined the board. (See Vicki’s profile, which follows this article).
Besides Vicki, our current board consists of Liz Carranza, Rosemarie Conde, Jann Lee, Joslyn Lewis, Gabriel Ramírez, Tom Reavley, Julia Salido, and Sandra Ward. Nancy Hager is our U.S. corporate secretary in New York. Board members serve without compensation.
Our officers are elected for one-year terms. Reelected this year were Tom Reavley, president, Joslyn Lewis, treasurer, and Liz Carranza, secretary. Gabriel Ramírez was elected vice president to replace Suzy Thompson, who recently moved to the U.S. All the board members and officers were elected unanimously.
Thanks to our donors, our fundraising efforts, and our frugality, Amigos ended 2025 with a hefty balance, even after having purchased a new van for our sterilization program. Although a typical campaign costs us $26,036 pesos (US $1502), we economize by not having an office to maintain and by relying on volunteers for many of our service needs.
Our accomplishments in 2025 included 22 sterilization campaigns (1,454 cases) at 14 locations and 5 sterilization training workshops (31 cases), for a total of 1,485 cases. Our two education specialists were busy mostly during the summer months, when regular schools were out of session but community groups offered summer courses for children. Altogether, the two women led 13 events focusing on pets’ needs and how to care for them.
Twice a week we posted educational messages on our Facebook and Instagram pages, and we displayed eight educational messages on the backs of two city buses during the year. Each message remained on a bus for three months and was seen by thousands of Guanajuatenses. We also published 12 monthly newsletters online, in English and Spanish, and updated our website.
Our 23rd anniversary celebration in February 2025 raised $113,417 pesos, and our Christmas Market in December netted $54,895 pesos. Terri Rasmussen, owner of Terri’s Tiny Tiendita, donated all the profits of her sales to Amigos, and Susan Pataky contributed the ingredients and oversaw the preparation of the many food items for the Christmas Market.
Enhancing our bottom line was very generous support from 10 Queridos Amigos individuals and couples, each of whom who donated at least USD $1200 to our organization in 2025. Other donors made significant one-time or monthly contributions. And most of the owners of pets sterilized at our campaigns donated $150 pesos per animal, thus reducing our average cost per sterilization from $527 to $394 pesos.
With no major increases in our capital or operating expenditures planned, our budget for 2026 is $902,888 pesos (US $52,100), based on a projected inflation rate of 3.89 percent. Besides continuing our twice-monthly sterilization campaigns and our teaching activities, our plans for the year include training a veterinary student to administer anesthesia for our campaigns, recruiting and training several high school students to help at the campaigns, and recruiting a student volunteer with a flair for communication to help with social media messages. Gabriel Ramírez, an attorney, will encourage law students to help members of the public file complaints about animal mistreatment with the city government.