Peg Gaudreau was nearly speechless Monday afternoon when she received the news.
Gaudreau, who is on the FurEver Home Inc., board of directors, was conducting a media interview when a colleague told her that the group’s “Jordan’s Way” fundraiser had just reached $10,000.
“We are very pleased,” Gaudreau said about the event at 236 W. 6th St. “This is amazing. We can’t thank the community enough.”
Kris Rotonda of Florida runs “Jordan’s Way,” as a tribute to his late dog. His goal is to help raise funds for shelters.
“After Jordan died, he decided he had been to enough shelters and seen how many dogs were in them that he made it his life mission,” Gadureau said.
Last month, FurEver Home was notified they had been selected as one of the shelters on the “Jordan’s Way” 50-state tour. Rotonda visits eight to 10 shelters per state.
“They notified us by email and we jumped on it right away,” Gaudreau said. “I talked with the rest of the board and we decided this was something we wanted to do.”
Fremont is the third location that Jordan’s Way has visited. Stops are also planned in Blair, Columbus and Lincoln. Rotonda’s high-energy program Monday included an ice bucket challenge that brought in $500 in donations.
“We got $1,000 from one business and there were all kinds of challenges,” Gaudreau said. “We had a hamburger-eating challenge. McDonald’s donated hamburgers. Juice Stop came here with pupsicles for the dogs. We had tons of gift certificates from Buffalo Wild Wings, Juice Stop, Firehouse subs and other businesses. All kinds of people have been helping us.”
Donations for the fundraiser remain open for 48 hours from the start of the Jordan’s Way event.
“This just comes at the perfect time for us,” Gaudreau said. “We have quite a few fundraisers planned for the future, but they are all dependent on the Covid-19 situation. This is why this is so critical for us. We couldn’t do a lot of fundraisers last year due to Covid.”
FurEver Home in Fremont began in 2016 with just three people and has slowly grown.
We network all across the country trying to pull dogs from the euthanasia list,” Gadureau said. “We fully vet them, we spay and neuter them, we microchip them and then we adopt them out.”
The flooding of 2019 made more people aware about FurEver.
“I think it put us on the map because everyone was coming here,” Gaudreau said. “We took in more than 200 animals. We had three locations with staff there 24 hours a day at each location.”
Gaudreau is hopeful that Covid won’t affect the group’s annual Bark in the Park, scheduled for August at Clemmons Park.
“It isn’t a money maker, but it is a way to thank the community for everything,” she said. “We have food and vendors and agility runs for the dogs.”
Check out the video from the live event here!
