ST. GEORGE — The Switchpoint Community Resource Center celebrated the reopening of its pet daycare and boarding facility earlier this month with a short ribbon-cutting ceremony and tours for supporters.
Switchpoint’s Bed’n’Biscuits Pet Village, which opened over three years ago, has moved from its original location on Sunset Boulevard to a larger facility at 960 N. Dixie Downs Road near Lin’s Fresh Market.
“Bed’n’Buscuits is a doggy daycare, boarding, training, grooming and training facility for dogs,” David Dangerfield, chairman of Switchpoint’s board of directors, said following the June 4 grand re-opening of Bed’n’Biscuits at its new location. “We also have a place for cats.”
The larger facility, which is split between two buildings, allows for more parking and greater room for the dogs boarding there, Dangerfield said. The new location also allows for separate areas dedicated to smaller and larger dogs, as well as a spot set aside for what Dangerfield referred to as “more reactive dogs.”
Like other business ventures started by Switchpoint, Bed’n’Biscuits provides a place where residents at Switchpoint’s shelter can either be employed or volunteer in order to gain work experience and help get reintegrated into the workforce. It also helps support the community resource center’s overall operations.
“It is here to provide unrestricted funding,” said Carol Hollowell, Switchpoint’s executive director. “All of the profit from Bed’n’Biscuits goes to Switchpoint.”
Dangerfield echoed that sentiment, “It helps support community services for the homeless people.”
As for the services Bed’n’Biscuits offers, Dangerfield said people who end up in the hospital and are unable to have family or friends look after their pet cat or dog can have them taken there. Homeless individuals with pets can do the same. Switchpoint also has a partnership with the Dove Center that allows women and families escaping domestic violence to keep their pets as the facility while those families are in transitional housing that may not allow pets.
“That’s kind of our mission here,” Dangerfield said.
The facility where the Bed’n’Biscuits Pet Village now resides was once used by the Southwest Behavioral Health Center for some of its substance abuse programs for a time before it was converted into a pet boarding and grooming facility by Switchpoint, Dangerfield said.
Switchpoint operates a shelter, food pantry, soup kitchen, thrift store, substance abuse treatment facility in Hildale and soon will add an attainable housing complex to its roster with the pending completion of the RiverWalk Village. All of these services and others provided under Switchpoint aim to help the homeless and those in-need rise from impoverished conditions and obtain housing, employment and overall self-sufficiency.
Those interested in learning more about Switchpoint, as well as its volunteer opportunities, can visit the community resource center’s website for more information.
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