OUR COMMUNITY
ON THE COVER

reform committee for the City of Detroit. 
The nonprofit continues to help 80 to 120 
dogs at any given time and has helped res-
cue and rehabilitate thousands of dogs in 
their shelter.
“Our current facility is 2,000 square feet, 
and we can hold about 22 to 24 dogs there. 
We’ve obviously grown out of that space,
” 
she said. 
“I received a call one day from a veter-
inarian who owned a building on Grand 
River and she said, ‘I’m retiring. I’ve seen 
you on the news. I’ve seen what you do. 

I would like to gift you my building.
’ She 
donated the entire building to DDR.
”
The 11,000-square-foot former veter-
inary clinic built in 1962 was donated to 
DDR in November 2018 by the Westcott 
family. 
“The building was formerly the first of 
many Wescott Veterinary Hospitals. It had 
a long history of helping Detroiters, and the 
owners wanted to see it used in a capacity 
to continue to help while they downsized 
their own operations,
” Millman-Rinaldi 
explained. 

Millman-Rinaldi says while the building 
has great bones, it needed some work. She 
then called her friends at PCI One Source 
Contracting in Oak Park and Stucky-Vitale 
Architects in Royal Oak and started mak-
ing plans. 
Long before planning a new facility, 
Millman-Rinaldi spent more than a decade 
traveling to other shelters to help with their 
initiatives. 
“I spent a solid year studying other 
shelters to build the new DDR. I visited 
four states and over a dozen shelters and 

continued on page 16

continued from page 13

Dogs aren’t the only 
furry friends that Kristina 
Millman-Rinaldi has 
rescued. 

14 | SEPTEMBER 8 • 2022 

