Boom time for Front Royal’s animal shelter despite the virus: latest fundraiser posts a record

The Humane Society of Warren County (HSWC) worked long, hard and imaginatively to re-organize one of its major annual fundraisers appropriately named “Barks & Bags”, using the regular Friday evening “Yappy Hour” (Aug. 28) to ice the cake. Volunteers joined humane society officials in raising more than $21,000 for animal shelter operations last weekend.

“It was most exciting to be able to pull it all together,” said HSWC President Ellen Aders at a “cleaning up” session Monday afternoon where she was joined by a delighted Wagner Shelter Executive Director Meghan Bowers and several volunteers, including Jean Plaugher in whose former “Jean’s Jewelers” store space the annual “Bark & Bags” culminated.

One of the fortunate ones – La Bella was adopted from the Julia Wagner Shelter several weeks ago by Sherry and Michael Williams of Front Royal. HSWC Courtesy Photo

Some 220 participants, a few less than the usual sellout luncheon crowd of 250, had used the empty store space in clutches of two or three to a dozen or so over a period of weeks to bring off an auction of expensive purses and hand bags while staying within the Coronavirus-required crowd size of up to 50 people.

Friday evening, Bowers separately sold $650 dollars’ worth of tickets on a $350 designer purse, joining Aders in the “Yappy Hour” crowd at ViNoVa tapas bar and restaurant, which also sold sufficient 50/50 raffles tickets to add another $1,000 to the weekend take. More came from a generous donation gauged on the evening’s dinner and drinks sales restaurant owners Rachel Failmezger and chef Chris Kenworthy realized from a crowd that spilled onto walking mall East Main Street – until the rains came!

Volunteer Susan O’Kelly hosted a “Thank You” luncheon Sunday, attended by guests from the table of eight she’d originally organized pre-Corona virus – “and a good time was had by all” she said, presumably including the cats, dogs, and other shelter animals which benefited from the unprecedented fundraisers of the weekend.

The writer, a few years ago, with his adopted Japanese Chin, Hamlet, in a photo during his tenure as president of the HSWC. Courtesy Photo Malcolm & Carol Barr

(“Yappy Hour”, favoring Front Royal’s Julia Wagner Animal Shelter, is held each Friday evening 6-8 p.m. at ViNoVA, 124 E. Main; “Barks & Bags” is an annual spring luncheon event, invariably sold out, featuring tables of ladies wearing hats. Malcolm Barr Sr. is a Royal Examiner contributing writer and a former president of HSWC.)