Two birthdays, separated by just over a month, and a story that has bound them together for forty years. APAS, the San Marino Animal Protection Association (Associazione Sammarinese Protezione Animali), is celebrating its 40th anniversary, recalling the origins of a journey that began in 1986 thanks to the meeting of three women: Elena Malagola Cappi, Nadia Busignani and Emanuela Stolfi.
The association’s anniversary comes just weeks after another particularly meaningful milestone. “In just over a month, two birthdays tied together by a special story were celebrated: on 30 July, Elena Malagola Cappi, APAS’s first President and now Honorary President, turned 100; on 4 September, the San Marino Animal Protection Association marked its 40th anniversary,” the press release states.
APAS’s origins date back to the spring of 1986, in Montecchio. “Three women, who did not yet know one another, used to visit the square in front of Casa Fabrica to care for some dogs kept in precarious conditions. They were Elena Malagola Cappi, Nadia Busignani and Emanuela Stolfi,” the association recalls.
It was precisely their care for those animals that brought them together and laid the foundations for APAS’s creation. “Their love for those animals brought them together, and from that encounter came an idea destined to leave a deep mark on San Marino’s history: creating an association for the protection of all animals,” the statement continues.
The official founding came just a few months later. On 4 September 1986, in the office of lawyer Renzo Bonelli, a group of people formally established the San Marino Animal Protection Association.
Four decades on, the three protagonists of that first experience have once again found themselves together. “Forty years later, Elena, Emanuela and Nadia are still together,” APAS notes. A photograph taken on the occasion of Elena Malagola Cappi’s 100th birthday shows them once more standing side by side.
“Three women, a chance meeting and an idea, from which a forty-year story was born, made of commitment, passion and love for animals,” the association concludes in the statement marking the double anniversary.
