As part of Yahoo's "You In?" campaign (kindness.yahoo.com), a few of us from Yahoo's corporate communications team decided to pay a surprise visit to one of our local charities that could use some support during these tough economic times.  And as pet owners with a soft spot for our four-legged friends, we decided that the SF SPCA would be a great beneficiary of a little bit of money, some fun blankets and pet toys courtesy of our friends at the Yahoo! company store and most importantly our love and attention to the serious issue of finding homes for the pets at the SF SPCA.

If you live in the Bay Area or have visited San Francisco during the holiday season, odds are that you have seen some of the cute dogs and cats in the windows of Macy's in Union Square, all part of the SPCA's holiday adoption drive. With hundreds of dogs and cats in need of a home living at the shelter at any given moment and a goal to find homes for more than 4000 animals each year, the SF SPCA has a herculean task that is undertaken by hundreds of staff and volunteers at their SF HQ, which includes Maddie's Pet Adoption Center and the Leanne B. Roberts Animal Care Center.  You can meet some of our new friends here:

When we came by to drop off our gifts, we were greeted warmly by SF SPCA President Jan McHugh-Smith and amazing employees like Susannah Dunlap.  Jan and Susannah gave us an all-access tour of their amazing new facility that offers potential pet owners the chance to see the dogs and cats in condo-like settings.  All of the cats even have their own TV sets!

We were also able to see their state-of-the-art veterinary care facility, where animals from all over the Bay Area come to get checked out and get ready for adoption.  The shelter is a no-kill facility and is often a literal safe-haven for pets from other shelters that do not have space, including the apparent overabundance of chihuahuas.

While the SF SPCA website is a great place to see all of the animals available for adoption, you can always come down to see the pets in person.  And for those of you who are socially-networked, you can also follow them on Twitter and Facebook.  For a preview of some of the pets you can adopt, we'd like to introduce you to our new friend Curtis the Cat:

And as a bonus, our new friends at the SF SPCA have given us the opportunity to let our followers on Facebook and Twitter name a kitten that will be up for adoption soon--so follow us and help give Mr. Pickles a new name!

Please visit Yahoo's You In? site to share your stories of kindness!

Happy Holidays!

Pamela Woon, Lucas Mast and Mariel Myers

Yahoo! Corporate Communications