College Student Uses Facebook to Save Animals

Marissa Ionno couldn't have imagined in her wildest dreams that her Facebook page was going to garner almost 900 "likes" by now.

Heck, she'd probably have been thrilled with 500.

Yet, as of 10 p.m. Wednesday, Ionno's "The TAILS Network" page had 897 "likes"—about 125 more than it had around 4 p.m. Tuesday.

Ionno, a 2010 Triton Regional High School graduate, just wants to do something to save animals.

"A lot of animals don't even have a chance. They walk in the shelter doors, they're held for however long they need to be held, and then they're euthanized," Ionno, a junior at Rutgers-Camden, said. "Once they walk in, they never see the light of day again."

Between 3 million and 4 million dogs and cats are euthanized in the United States each year, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Ionno was already volunteering at Lindenwold's "no-kill" Animal Adoption Shelter when she launched TAILS on July 13.

The Facebook page serves as an online destination for animal lovers and rescuers from across the country to share pictures of shelter animals—the goal being to find the animals homes so they're not euthanized.

TAILS even has a small international following already, with "likes" coming from as far away as Belgium and Australia, Ionno said.

And that's huge to the Laurel Springs, Gloucester Township, resident. In her quest to give a voice to the voiceless, she's reached across oceans.

"Clearly, they don't have a voice. So, if I can take a picture of a dog that's going to be euthanized tomorrow and post it on a site like mine, hopefully, someone sees it and says, 'Oh, I live in that area or I have a rescue in that area and I can pull 'em,'" Ionno said. "So that's the point of the page: To re-home animals that really don't have a chance."

TAILS is populated with photos and stories of rescue cats—from tabbies to tortoiseshells—and rescue dogs—from pit bulls to Chihuahuas and from St. Bernards to chocolate labs. There's even a goat on the page (scroll down to July 23).

Give it a look. Who knows? You might find your family's next pet there.

(Warning: Some photos posted on TAILS show severely injured and emaciated dogs, and may be upsetting to some readers.)