From its beginnings as a handful of animal lovers meeting weekly for coffee, an all-volunteer group has grown to become the top provider of affordable spaying and neutering for dogs and cats on Maui.

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Maui also has stepped up to fill other animal welfare needs, providing vaccination clinics that drew hundreds of cats after the potentially deadly panleukopenia virus reached the island in May.

“The animals bring us all together,” said Peter Tierney, SPCA Maui vice president. “That’s how we build community through our interaction with people who care for animals. We have built a pretty big little community.”

Supported 100 percent by private donations and receiving no government money, the organization has more than 100 volunteers who help at regular spay-neuter clinics now held at its rented space in Kahului. By also counting residents who trap neighborhood cats to be fixed, “we would probably be over 1,000 active participants,” Tierney said.

After being incorporated as a nonprofit in 2009, SPCA Maui had three animals spayed or neutered in 2010. By the start of 2015, the number of cats and dogs spayed or neutered will reach 4,000, said Sue Liscombe, SPCA Maui president and founding member.

“From the beginning, we have always been ‘you pay what you can afford to pay,’ ” she said of the organization formed to augment services for animals.

“We realized there was a huge gap in service in affordable spay-neuter, especially for dogs,” said founding member and director Aimee Anderson. “It’s been hugely successful.”

While Anderson books dogs for surgeries, director Chris Jenkins, his wife, Holly, and volunteer David Raatz screen the cats. At the next cat clinic Jan. 4, cat No. 2,565 will be fixed, Tierney said.

Others who help keep the group running are secretary Naomi Okazaki, founding member and treasurer Georgia Norton, founding member and director Whitney White and directors Bethann McVicker, Karen Venardos, Randee Gabrielle and Julie Vogt.

SPCA Maui is in the second year of running the Spay Neuter Incentive Program, which provides $75,000 annually. While the Maui Humane Society had used 10 percent of the grant for administration, SPCA spends all the money on spay-neuter services. “We wanted it to go for its intended purpose,” Anderson said.

Private veterinarians on Maui do the surgeries. “We are the No. 1 client for every vet on the island,” Tierney said.

SPCA also provides food and flea and tick medicine for homeless pets, all with the goal “to eliminate euthanasia as a means of population control, allowing people to keep their animals,” Tierney said.

“When it’s four or five hundred dollars to spay your pit bull, that’s rent for some people,” he said.

“We are an all-volunteer organization, which is the most amazing thing. The support we get from the community is what makes what we do possible.”

Donations may be mailed to P.O. Box 1679, Wailuku 96793 or through the www.spcamaui.org website.

– Lila Fujimoto, staff writer