Fort Erie held its first ever “Dog Day Afternoon” event on May 26 at the Fort Erie Conservation Club in Stevensville, ON. It featured vendor booths, a children’s area, dog demos, and even the SPCA. The FE Conservation Club owns a huge, maintained area suitable for dog demonstrations, and a beautiful log club house that was used for our Penny Sale, Silent Auction, and 50/50 draw.The event consisted of over 40 paid vendor booths. The majority of booths were dog related. Anything dog related was there; from dog food to dog paraphernalia sellers, from dog groomers to dog walkers, and from dog CPR to a dog psychic!
There were many dog demonstrations including the Canadian Border/Customs demo. The Canadian Border/Customs people brought along their dog to do a drug sniffing demo. Our Pres Elec, Dave Klune, of course was the “guilty party.” LOL! Other demos were also staged including a dog “mood reading” via the dog psychic.
We had some rough patches; expected, as this was our first attempt at doing an annual fund-raising signature event in recent times. But we came through. We want to thank many adult volunteers, the Fort Erie Conservation Club, and the students from GFESS. Of course, thanks to our sponsors, vendors, and media. Last but not least, thanks to the public for attending.
All in all, we had a great time, a great learning experience, and a pretty decent Net dollars for The Little Club That Can.
- Vincent Quon
For our Penny sale and Silent Auction; we featured over 80 items. (We want to thank the Welland Club and the Niagara Falls clubs for staying away from Port Colborne and Fort Erie when they canvas for their TV auction. We need our local businesses to donate their goods to their local club, i.e.. us.)Also, we managed to get sponsorship of cash to help run the event. 35 Sponsors helped with this side of DDA. The Canadian Customs Employees also gathered together to help raise over $200 in cash.
We had a tiny bit of rain around noon, which was unfortunate, because we believe we would have raised more funds. We ended up raising slightly over $5.5K net. (Note: the number was estimated as of closing; numbers would be more precise after accounting. But I need to get this article out before the deadline. The net could be even higher. Fingers crossed.)