An unusual presence will grace the Montpelier Farmers Market today, on Saturday, July 30. Parked amidst the vegetable stands, the organic meat providers, the purveyors of specialty seafood products, and other vendors, will be a blue, two-toned truck emblazoned with the name and logo of the Mitzvah Fund.
The Fund’s founder and president, Deb Glottmann, will be on hand, perhaps with volunteers. They will be selling nothing. Rather, they see it as an opportunity to make their presence, and their mission, better known to the community. And because their good works subsist on donations, they’ll hope a little monetary love comes their way, too.
Most important, though, is for people to know what the Mitzvah Fund does, and for whom. Glottmann, a veterinary technician with decades of service at all levels of the animal-care field, and local veterinarian Connie Riggs, provide medical and dental care for the pets of people who are financially unable to take their loved ones to a local vet. Specifically, their customers are low-income seniors, low-income veterans, and unhoused people. The van is their retrofitted clinic, and appears each Friday in front of city hall to serve the pets that serve their often lonely, often destitute, human companions with love.
“Some of [our clients] are phenomenal pet owners,” says Riggs. “These animals are like a lifeline for them.”
