Are Y'all Sitting Down???
Someone please pinch us ... we're still in shock.
It appears our determination to reach $10,000 with Juliette's benefit concert last night instilled the same in all of you who have followed the building's fundraising journey throughout the past year. By providing a dollar-for-dollar match, Best Friends' generosity would make the evening a roaring $20,000 success.
That, however, was just the beginning.
While everyone was thoroughly enjoying Juliette's trademark performance peppered with her quick-witted retorts and dramatic, "dahling" snippets of her own life experiences in "the biz," a handful of people was silently crunching numbers in the back room to have a tally before the audience left the theater.
When Tom approached the stage with a knowing grin on his face, everyone had the distinct impression the $10,000 was reached; it was when he invited Juliette to join him in the spotlight that people began to wonder.
He confirmed with Juliette that last year brought in $4,500 with BF's match of $4,000 for a grand total just over $9,000. She agreed, looking at him with a quizzical expression. "Well," he said, "you must be singing better this year."
Tom turned to the audience and announced "with the match, $27,000!!" to an outburst of cheers that was likely heard by the dogs back at FHS. But for those of you who know Tom, you understand how he likes to go for the greatest impact so what happened next was indeed a perfect end to a perfect evening.
"What's that?" Tom asks in the direction of the front row.
Erin Robinson, the main number cruncher, waves something.
"Ohhhhh," said Tom. "That's the amount BEFORE the match?"
You would think the roof was going to explode from the decibel-breaking enthusiasm set off by the crowd. Then what was surely a first-time occurrence for this glib entertainer, Juliette was momentarily unable to spit out a coherent sentence and crumpled to the floor in giggles.
To say everyone involved with the benefit concert is overwhelmed with gratitude for raising $54,000 is to make a tremendous understatement. We can't wait to give the contractor the green light and hope many of FHS's remote supporters will be able to personally attend the ribbon cutting/grand opening party of the century.
Photo above: the soon-to-be historic relic of FHS transformed into the photo below.
Octagon rendering by Josh Baird.
The evening was recorded on DVD and will be available shortly.
Fredonia Humane Society welcomes operational and supply donations through
PayPal with the email address
fredhumsoc@aol.com, our
Amazon Wish List or via snail mail to PO Box 1238, Fredonia, AZ 86022. Questions and comments are always appreciated to
fredhumsoc@aol.com.