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Our shelter has now broken ground!

September 27 was a beautiful day in Rock Creek Park.  The weather was perfect and a crowd gathered to celebrate the formal groundbreaking of Dawson County's first animal shelter. 




Turn up your speakers and click here to see a video clip of the shovel-turning moment!






Below: Eric Bott (our builder), Al Jorgensen (Board member), Kurt Krattinger (Board member and construction Site Manager for the Board), Brandon Mills (Board President), the Rev. Nancy Noblin (Board member), George David (Board member), Russ Anderson (Humane Society volunteer), Claire Sharp (Board member), and Gary Pichon (County Commissioner).


Below is the full text of Doc Mills' speech for the occasion.

A great work is unfolding before us today. Dawson County's first animal shelter will soon be built. Look around you. This is a gorgeous location. Many other communities have hidden their animal shelters in undesirable and out-of-the-way places. Dawson County has allowed this shelter to be showcased in a beautiful spot. Rather than being a warehouse where we attempt to hide our problem, this shelter will be a place of hope for wayward pets. The surroundings will invite and encourage people to visit the shelter and adopt animals. Workers and volunteers will have a pleasant environment for interacting with the animals. Dogs will have room to stretch out and enjoy playtime with the volunteers.

The new shelter and this fantastic property cannot deliver on this "hope" without one very important ingredient, community support. Fine architectural design and earthly beauty will be the proverbial "gold ring in a pig's snout" if we turn our backs on the animals once this place is built. Volunteers will be the backbone of loving support for the animals here. We will need many, many volunteers. This is a privately funded society, not a government operation. Donations, grants, endowments, and fundraisers will be constantly needed. If you consider this shelter a solution, and its construction an endpoint, then it will be a dead end for the animals here.

The success of this construction project says all kinds of good things about the citizens of Dawson County. What has been accomplished here should appear as one of those "feel good" stories in news outlets all over this nation. Let's continue the good work beyond the opening of the shelter. The animals are counting on us.