Last Saturday a dozen awesome Beavers teamed up to give the furry orphans of the Humane Society of Tampa a good Christmas.
We wanted to do something fun for Christmas and since we helped Toys for Tots last year we wanted to do something else. Not to mention it seemed like EVERYONE was doing Toys for Tots this year. Don’t get us wrong, it’s a great organization, but come on, there’s tons of other groups that could use a helping hand. The Humane Society is a great group that does a ton of good things so we reached out to our local shelter and offered some help. We got a list of what they needed and off we went.
One of the things they needed was chew toys for the animals. We reached out to the KONG Company and told them what we were up to and they stepped up to help us stretch our donation budget.
One awesome surprise is KONG makes Beaver catnip toys! Look, a little beaver, the cats are going to go crazy over this.
Next up, we needed to get food. Want to know something interesting? If you have a business license but aren’t in a business that deals directly with animals, the pet food companies won’t give you the time of day. We hit every pet food manufacturer in the country, and then moved on to the distribution companies then on to retailers. We finally had to admit we’d be stuck paying retail for it all so then came time for doing the math to figure out the best way to stretch the budget. We tried coupons, bulk rates, online, everything. Math sucks…
We finally got the dry food and canned cat food (plus some cleaning supplies) then moved on to the other things on our list, towels, bowls, treats, office supplies, etc. By Friday night we finally had the garage overflowing and then came the job of trying to load it in the trucks. Sure renting a cargo van would have been easier, but this time of year FedEx and UPS rent every cargo van they can get their hands on so there were NONE available in the area. The only thing we could find was a 16′ box truck which would have been a total overkill and really cut into our budget.
So we made due with what we had and loaded up Beaver1 and Beaver2 then met up with some local Team Beaver helpers to make the delivery
Unload time
Dog food
and dog food
and more dog food
more?
Of course we had to give something to the staff so donuts were in order
All in all we managed to gather over 550lbs of dry dog food, 200+ cans of canned cat food, 300+ KONG chew toys, 2 cases of cleaner, 3 cases of treats, a bag of wooden chew toys (for the bunnies and little critters), some new pet beds, new towels for their baths, a bunch of new food bowels, spray cheese (to fill the KONGs), a case of printer paper, a couple boxes of pens, 4 cases of sharpies and some more odds and end items.
Big thanks to the KONG Company, all the Beavers that chipped in with supplies, the Beavers that gave up their Saturday to help out, Linksters Tap Room in Brandon for being the ONLY business in the area that let us put up a donation bucket (no, I’m not bitter…), and of course a big thanks to all our fans that have shopped at BeaverMart which helps fund Team Beaver and make things like this possible.
Now it’s time to play with the animals!
After the trucks were unloaded the staff at the Humane Society was nice enough to let us roam around and see all the orphans waiting for new homes.
Rik made a new friend
OK, we won’t start singing that Sarah McLachlan song, but you have to admit these cute little guys tug at the heartstrings
‘In the arms of the angel, fly away from here…’ (sorry, had to)
This little pup needed some love.
Pro Tip: don’t take your kids to a shelter unless you want to leave feeling like a big meanie. Liam laid on the guilt trip after this
Mick didn’t want to leave either
These cats have it made. They get to sit here and watch squirrels and birds on the TV.
Kitteh is not amused
Braylin and Ernesto hanging out on the cat lanai. Seriously, the cats have a porch to hang out on and play, how cool is that?
Bunny!
Little Scot and big Scott
Tracy taking pics of the kitties
We’re all done, now it’s time to grub!
After helping out the animals it was time to have a fun holiday lunch at our favorite wingery. Don’t waste your time at that owl place, when you want to get your wing fix Winghouse is the only place to go
If you ask nicely they’ll turn off the sports and put on cartoons! I should have brought a Chromecast so we could watch some fail videos
I raided the BeaverMart supply closet, shirts and stickers for everyone!
Wings are finally here. Did you know you can order wings by the 100? Sorry vegans, I know we slaughtered a bunch of chickens for the glorious feast, but they didn’t die in vein, they were tasty
Rik and Barb are confirming that yes, those are wings
OMG, nacho overload
Fun grubbing by all
All you Beavers up North freezing your tails off, look at the temp on the blue screen in the background. December 20th and the high is 79. Just wanted to point that out 😉
So that was our Saturday, a fun event helping a great cause and a great lunch with some awesome peeps. So from Scott (StrangeBeaver.com founder and the idiot behind the scenes) and Tracy (StrangeBeaver.com co-founder, who spends her time yelling at Scott) a huge thank you to The Humane Society of Tampa Bay, the KONG Company, Ker’s Winghouse, and our Beaver elves that helped out.
And to the rest of you, thank you for being such incredibly great fans, we seriously have the best fans of any website on the net. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Festivus, Super Winter Solstice, Happy Kwanza, ok that’s getting too long. Let’s just go with Happy Holidays. We love you all, stay safe and keep being awesome.
