This year’s Florence Area Humane Society Bone-E-Fit raised $126,910 and pushed the organization over halfway to the $850,000 it needs to build a new no-kill animal shelter.
“I think we’ve done a lot in two events, and we’ve come a long way,” Bone-E-Fit co-chairman Jeff Murrie said Tuesday, when the fundraising results of the second annual event were announced.
The fundraising goal was $100,000 for this year’s event, which included a live band, food and a silent auction.
The first Bone-E-Fit raised $79,421. Along with funding from the Drs. Bruce and Lee Foundation, the humane society has about $452,000 toward a new shelter, said Jason Coker, who handled the Bone-E-Fit fundraising.
About 700 people attended the first Bone-E-Fit, while bartenders estimated more than 1,000 attended this year’s event, Murrie said.
“I have strived to make it an event that embraces everybody because we all have one common goal: to build a new animal shelter,” he said.
Murrie had the vision of the Bone-E-Fit and has “led us down the path to a very beneficial venture,” Jayne Boswell, the organization’s president, said.
“He’s the Energizer bunny of the humane society,” Boswell said.
Boswell learned through a surprise announcement at this year’s Bone-E-Fit that the new shelter will be named for her.
The new no-kill animal shelter will replace the Florence Area Humane Society’s current building, which suffers from cramped conditions.
The humane society hopes to begin work on the new shelter by the late summer or early fall and open the new building in January.
The Bone-E-Fit, already scheduled for May 2009, will continue after the new facility is complete.
Humane society leaders hope to establish an endowment to help pay for the shelter’s outreach programs. In addition, they will need money for salaries, pet food and other expenses.
Although the first step is to build a new shelter in Florence, a low-cost Spay Neuter Intervention of the Pee Dee, or SNIP, clinic is in the works to help control the area’s animal population.
Florence’s humane society has more than 2,000 unwanted pets and strays in its facility per year, while more than 8,000 animals came through Florence County’s Effingham animal control facility last year.
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