Visiting Lawrence (again)
(I am on the road to Philadelphia, so I will try to keep this short.) =)

On Sunday, I drove from Champaign to Lawrence to participate in the St. Patrick's Day parade with the Lawrence Humane Society and present them with our check from the second campaign. While in town, I stopped by Target and picked up two dozen or so travel-sized bathroom items (deodorant, sunblock, toothpaste, etc.) to drop at the community shelter from our first campaign. Loring, the director, was not in the office yet on Monday morning, so I left the donation with a note. It will be good to keep in touch with them over the next year as they work toward funding for a new building/location.

Late Sunday night, I sent an order to Kinko's for 20 sheets of our bookmark. I had three bags of Starburst candies to tape to 100 bookmarks for the parade. We handed them all out within the first 5 blocks, but I am getting ahead of myself.

First, we stood in the drizzling rain for an hour, finishing the float, waiting, waiting, and waiting. Then we walked in the parade for 20-minutes, handed out all of the bookmarks, and were completely soaked by the end. My fingers are crossed that at least a few of those bookmarks made it into the hands of a new viewer.

When we went back to the humane society, I presented Midge with the check and took a photo with the staff who were on hand. We did a video tour of the shelter, and I will have that on the web site as soon as I get back home and can edit everything together.

The renovation/expansion completed last fall at the humane society had a $600,000 loan. They have paid it down, roughly, to the last $120,000. With our donation and other fundraisers, they hope to have it paid off this year.

Unfortunately, the plaque was not ready when I was there, but Midge promised to take a photo and send it our way when it was done. It will go in a stainless steel sleeve that you see along the front of the kennels for visitors to see in the future.

After the day's activities, we grabbed a quick bite to eat with Midge and her husband, Mark, who also helps at the shelter. The most interesting part of the trip was to learn some of the history of the shelter - how it used to have a 90%+ euthanasia rate, how the community used to view it negatively - and to know it has been turned around so completely and resulted in positives in the community and statewide in the last 12 years.

The shelter is a "no kill" shelter, and the expansion specifically allows them to not euthanize due to space issues. One of the plans for the near future is to create a cat enclosure that is outdoors - a screened sunporch for the cats!

It was nice to visit Lawrence again, despite the rain, and I am really glad to know the staff of the Lawrence Humane Society are taking care of the animals in their community because they do it for the love of the animals which means every animal will get the love and care and home they need and deserve.

Here is my assembly line at Kinko's on Monday morning.


There was a frame on the wall with various adoptees. This is Sam saying "Dean!"


Here is the float, still getting the finishing touches.


Many people took it for Scoobie Doo. Of course, we were behind a VW van that looked mysteriously like the Mystery Machine, so who can blame them.




You can tell from the tired faces (and rain and mud) that we took this after the parade.