Richard L. Rapone
Lawrence County Treasurer

LC-ARF! Officers

Richard L. Rapone
President

John Altman
Vice President

Lorraine Vesceri
Secretary

Chris Fabian
Treasurer

Board of Directors

District Attorney Josh Lamancusa
Lillian Germaine
Linda Phillips
Tony Court
Ted Saad
Marilyn Cook
Dick Craig
Dr. Melanie Sumney
Audrey Blackwell
Susan Lubinski
Susan Miller
Lorraine Vesceri

To report animal abuse in Lawrence County, please call

(724)656-9300

Dear Visitor,
    I would like to personally welcome you to the Lawrence County Animal Relief Fund, LC-ARF! Web site. It is with great enthusiasm and purpose to have been elected President by my fellow board members. I embrace this position on behalf of concerned animal lovers just like you and for all “our animals” who do not have the ability to articulate their needs and concerns, so we become “their voices”. As an elected official and public servant to the people I feel it is always very important to listen to the feedback of those who have entrusted you with their confidence to represent them in leadership positions. I take this role very seriously.

     I became involved with the LC-ARF! Program because as the County Treasurer it is one of my responsibilities to issue the annual dog licenses to county residents. A group of concerned citizens brought to my attention that our county has gone many years without an animal humane officer to answer animal abuse calls thus many animals here in our county were being put in harms way with no help in sight. After our counties legal team did research and discovered that as a 5^th class county we did not have the powers granted by the commonwealth to maintain such a position we now knew what we couldn’t do, it was time to figure out what we could do! Another concerned citizen brought to my attention that in nearby Allegheny County there was a non-profit 501C-3 organization initiated by their county treasurer nearly five years ago that seemed to be very successful in helping their animal abuse situation. I contacted that treasurer and through his mentoring introduced their Animal Relief Fund guidelines to our county here in Lawrence-hence the Lawrence County Animal Relief Fund!

    After my first press release, I received many phone calls and e-mails from people wanting more information and wanting to get involved with this project. The support from our community was incredible and still remains to be! What inspires me on a daily basis is the amount of support this organization is receiving. The cooperation and communication from city, county and state government and many good Samaritans and concerned citizens has made this LC-ARF! such a beautiful and rewarding mission to part of. As you visit our web site my hope is that you will personally feel all the warmth and care that has been put into this site. Please visit “Cindy’s Corner”. This is a wonderful tribute to someone I feel so blessed to have known. May her incredible acts of kindness and care towards animals inspire your life as much as it has mine. Your feedback and support in helping our cause here in Lawrence County is so greatly appreciated and thank you for helping us to help our animals. In closing, I am moved and humbled by the generosity of strangers who have risen to the occasion by giving their time, their money and their all to help this dire cause. Helping the world begins with helping a need one community at a time and that’s what we are truly all about.
Respectfully yours,
Richard L. Rapone
President-LC-ARF!

“I’ve seen and met angels wearing the disguise of ordinary people living ordinary lives.”

…Tracy Chapman