St. PETrick’s Day returns after reschedule by FOGAS

Community

ELLIJAY, Ga. – It may be the end of April, but citizens are still feeling the St. Patrick’s Day spirit as the Friends of Gilmer Animal Shelter (FOGAS) partnered with local animal shelters and raised money with the return of St. Petrick’s Day. The event saw cancellation earlier this year as inclement weather and snow moved in during the Saturday, March 12, event.

FOGAS

Sheriff’s Office K-9 units Arlo and Milo walk proudly in the St. Petrick’s Day Pet Parade.

Instead of allowing the event to fall victim to the same cancellations of the last two years due to COVID, the FOGAS board rescheduled the event. With a beautiful Saturday this weekend, the event kept its rescheduled date and saw new success with an increase in funds raised. According to FOGAS Vice-President Sylvia Harris, the event raised $2,600 for the Gilmer Animal Shelter and provided meetings and pet adoptions for those attending. Despite the reschedule. the fundraising saw an increase from the last time the event was held according to Harris.

With 25 vendors and booths set up for the festival, the celebrations continued into the afternoon with entertainment from Voltage Dance Factory’s competition team.

FOGAS

Grand Marshall, Denise Fleck, the Pet Crusade, leads the parade of pets through Ellijay on April 30, 2022.

An estimated 300 people attended the Saturday and many of those participated in the Best Dressed, Owner-Pet look-a-like, Most Unusual Pet, and Best Vocal Performance. However, it wasn’t just citizens attending the event. The Sheriff’s Office saw all three of its K-9 Units Milo, Arlo, and Novak joining the pet parade to show off the animal side of our law enforcement, an “invaluable” side of the office as Sheriff Stacy Nicholson stated last year when a grant saw new vests for two of the dogs.

Special guest Denise Fleck served as the parade’s Grand Marshall. Denise Fleck is an award-winning author & radio show host and animal care instructor who developed the curriculum for her Pet First-Aid & CPCR Classes after training with dozens of schools.

FOGAS

Locals and tourists alike brought pets to visit downtown during the 2022 St. PETrick’s day celebration after weather caused a reschedule from the March 12 original date.

She attended with Tico, an Akira breed dog that Harris said Fleck has previously adopted from Gilmer’s Animal Shelter. Harris stated that she had shared pictures of Tico with Fleck before and when she had visited Amicalola, she traveled into Gilmer to meet and adopt the dog.

With the success of the day’s events, Harris said that FOGAS has already begun talking about next year’s St. Petrick’s Day. However, she noted that with continuing issues over recent years in early March, they could be looking to keep a later event date and possibly looking to keep the event in April next year as well. She said that this is still early discussions and they have much planning to do but noted that due to this year’s reschedule they were not able to advertise the April date as much as they wanted.

The event was originally supported through a partnership with the Gilmer Chamber for advertising and inviting locals to celebrate their pets while also inviting tourists to bring their animals with them when they visit Ellijay. The event set up mainly on 1 Broad Street next to the courthouse and took over most of the downtown area as the parade traveled along North Main and the square before following down Dalton Street.

Gilmer Animal Shelter expansion approved

Community, News
expansion, Animal Shelter

ELLIJAY, Ga. – “The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” A sign say in front of the Gilmer County Courthouse’s Jury Assembly Room, brought by one of the supporters of the county’s Animal Shelter and an expansion plan alongside two major donations for the facility.

expansion

Brought by a citizen speaking in support of the shelter’s expansion, a sign sits in front of the BOC meeting on September 12, 2021.

The plan actually includes both expansion and retrofitting of the facility. With encouragement from groups like FOGAS (Friends of Gilmer Animal Shelter), Volunteers Helping the Gilmer County Animal Shelter, Paws Be Good, Homeward Bound, Furry Paws, and many others according to Jack Peyton of FOGAS, who spoke first in the Commissioners meeting on September 9, 2021.

The expansion and donations have been discussed before with questions arising over how the county will support the annual increase in budget for maintaining a larger facility.

Many of those who spoke at the meeting, including Animal Shelter Director Daniel Laukka, stated that the need for a larger facility is already here and more growth is coming. Laukka and others spoke about how animals have become so increased in number that they are being housed in areas like offices simply because their is not enough room elsewhere. With cages in his own office for cats, Laukka spoke of the benefits that the expansion and retrofit will provide in caring for the animals, and how some money could be saved in the annual costs.

Minor items like having to take animals to the vets office for spay/neuter appointments will be neutralized as the expansion has a small area for vets to come and perform the procedures in the animal shelter with equipment in the shelter.

Laukka said he already has 2 vets committed to coming to the shelter to do this. With volunteers continuing to help when possible, speakers in the meeting repeated the need that they have seen as they have helped and visited the shelter. He also noted that a local commercial laundry service has offered to service new laundry equipment designated in the retrofit for free. Also helping with some additional maintenance costs.

Daniel Laukka

Animal Shelter Director Daniel Laukka, left, sits in the Gilmer BOC meeting waiting to speak about the donations and plans to expand.

Additional discussion moved from what is needed to what has already been accomplished. Dr. William Mitchell, a veterinarian, walked to the podium and said, “I am here to speak in support of Daniel.”

Though the topic at hand was about plans to expand the animal shelter, many of the speakers spoke specifically to what Director Daniel Laukka has accomplished and the leadership he has provided. Dr. Mitchell went on to say he has worked with Animal Control facilities for several decades, “I have never seen a more dedicated and hard working individual than Daniel.”

Laukka himself said he could never do what he does without his staff and supporting groups. It is a collective of efforts from the community that support the shelter.

Programs from supporting groups have allowed for help in the community like low cost spays and neuters for those who need it and the capturing of feral cats in order to spay/neuter and then re-release.

All of these culminate in a department that citizens said has every county in North Georgia looking at Gilmer and how they handle this. One speaker went so far as to call it a “mecca” of the animal shelters in the area.

expansion

A photo of the GIlmer Animal Shelter from the Volunteers Helping the Gilmer Animal Shelter.

Laukka himself noted that in 2013, the shelter averaged around 1800 to 2000 animals a year. Laukka noted that close to 1100 of those animals were euthanized every year. WIth expansion first looked at four years ago, according to Laukka, the county instead went with a van that is used in partnership with other programs in other states in the north.

With this hard work towards becoming a “no kill” status, Laukka said in the meeting, “Ninety-nine percent of the animals that come into the shelter now, leave the shelter alive, adoptable, healthy. I get all the credit for it but I couldn’t do it without all the volunteers and the employees. The employees do way more than anybody could ever know.”

Almost 45 minutes of discussion saw every single person that did stand to speak on the topic discussing their support for accepting the donations and the expansion plans. After that, the commissioners moved to the agenda item on the plans.

expansion

As the unanimous vote made approval of the plans for expansion, citizens rose to their feet in applause to show their own approval of the motion.

A very emotional night saw several speakers fighting back tears, and so followed Chairman Paris as he said, “I understand. I can’t say a lot, but I’m going to make a motion to accept the money and build a shelter.”

Post Commissioner Karleen Ferguson later seconded the motion after clarifying and Paris’ amending his motion that the county fund an expansion with costs not to exceed the fund for the building from the donations. He explained the fund contains a little over $1.5 million. As such, the fund is specifically designated for the shelter. Paris said there is nothing else it can be used for.

According to a statement by FOGAS, “The input, planning, architectural work, and engineering have been completed for this expansion project.” Now, the county will take on the plans with the intent to bid and begin construction. The engineer was present at the meeting and relayed that with the work that’s been done, the county could be bidding the project by the end of the year with construction to begin in 2022.

Speaking on the expansion, Director Laukka said, “I could probably stand up here and talk for hours about what we’ve accomplished over the last few years but I want to accomplish more over the next few years as well. It’s definitely something we have to do together.”

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