Clear the Shelters: Ryan Eggold, Hill’s Pet Raise $1.185M for Shelters/Rescues

“We are excited that our first-ever virtual Clear The Shelters campaign has helped thousands of animals find new homes, and for shelters to get the funding they need to continue their work. Year after year, our campaign inspires people to open their homes and hearts to deserving animals and this year’s effort only reinforced the magic of Clear The Shelters. Congratulations to all the new pet parents on finding your new best friend,” said Meredith McGinn, NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations’ Clear The Shelters campaign leader and SVP of NBCLX, COZI TV and LX.TV. “To our show hosts Ryan Eggold, Telemundo’s Stephanie Himonidis and Armida Mier, and SNL’s Melissa Villaseñor, thank you for joining our campaign and using your platforms to raise awareness about pet adoption issues.”

NBC’s “New Amsterdam” star Ryan Eggold joined the campaign this year as host of the half-hour “Clear The Shelters” special that aired on NBC stations on August 28, which shared this year’s most heartwarming pet adoption stories. Click here to watch the show online.

Telemundo stations aired a half-hour special for Spanish-speaking audiences on Saturday, August 29, which was hosted by Telemundo’s  Stephanie Himonidis and KVEA-Telemundo 52’s Armida Mier. To watch the “Desocupar Los Albergues” special, click here.

This year’s pet adoption drive included the participation of more than 1,164 animal shelters/rescues, 125 NBC and Telemundo owned and affiliated stations, and several sponsors and partners including third-year returning national sponsor Hill’s Pet Nutrition, and returning media partner and No. 1 social media animal brand The Dodo / El Dodo. The campaign’s virtual donation partners included WeRescue and 24PetWatch while GreaterGood.org made it possible for individuals everywhere to donate to shelters/rescues through their dedicated campaign donation site. Matching donations were provided by The Animal Rescue Site and Heartgard.

In addition, Clear The Shelters partner iHeart Dogs and SNL cast member Melissa Villaseñor teamed up to raise funds for shelters/rescues. Villaseñor helped create a T-shirt for iHeartDogs with all the t-shirt sales profits going to GreaterGood.org’s Clear The Shelters fundraising campaign.

To help future pet parents meet and greet their future pet, NBC and Telemundo owned stations teamed up with Google Meet to present “Bark Week” – a weeklong virtual event that took place from August 10-14 and featured shelter pets from Chicago, IL, Huntington, NY, Philadelphia, PA, Pasadena, CA, and Irving, TX.

“Clear The Shelters is made possible thanks to the unwavering support from NBC and Telemundo owned stations and our partners including NBC affiliate stations, over a thousand shelters/rescues, our media partner The Dodo / El Dodo, national campaign sponsor – Hill’s Pet Nutrition and our digital campaign partners WeRescue, 24PetWatch, GreaterGood.org, iHeart Dogs and Google Meet.  Together, we helped to make Clear The Shelters another memorable year,” added McGinn.

Some of the animals that found new homes during Clear The Shelters 2020 include Dennis Quaid the cat, who was adopted by actor Dennis Quaid. In Pasadena, California Bon-Bon, an older dog who is blind in one eye, also found a new home. Kayda, a bearded dragon from Irving, Texas was also adopted while in Trenton, New Jersey, Brooklyn the pit bull found a new home after living in a shelter for seven years.

The NBC and Telemundo owned stations’ Clear The Shelters 2020 campaign reached more than 39 million social media users throughout the month of August. Clear The Shelters reached an average of 1.17 million people per day on social media through the entirety of the campaign. An additional 22 million people were reached via external blogs, news articles, forums, podcasts, and reviews. Social media posts that mentioned Clear The Shelters / Desocupar Los Albergues received more than 10,000 shares and 100,000 likes across social media. Online, NBC and Telemundo-owned stations websites and apps generated a combined total of 941,000 page views in August for content dedicated to the Clear The Shelters / Desocupar Los Albergues campaign, with nearly 75,000 page views generated on August 10.