Rotary Fort Erie held its first ever Dog Day Afternoon event featuring vendor booths, children’s area, dog demos, and even the SPCA. The event was held in Stevensville, at the Fort Erie Convervation Club. The FE Conservation Club own a huge maintained area suitable for dog demonstrations and a beautiful log club house that was used for our Penny Sale, Silent Auction, and 50/50 draw.

The event consisted of over 40 paid vendor booths where the majority of them were dog related. Anything dog related was there; from dog food to dog paraphernalia sellers, from dog groomers to dog walkers, and from dog CPR to dog psychic!

There were many dog demonstrations including the Canadian Border/Customs demo which showed a drug sniffing dog doing its work. Our Pres Elec, Dave Klune, of course was the selected to carry the contraband. Other demos included a dog mood reading via the dog psychic.

For our Penny sale and Silent Auction; we featured over 80 items. As well, we managed to get sponsorship of cash to help run the event. 35 Sponsors helped with this side of DDA. The Canadian Border Services Agency Employees also gathered together to help raise over $200 in cash.

We had a tiny bit of rain around noon, which was unfortunate, because we believe we would have raised more funds. We had some ruff patches; expected, as this was our first attempt of doing an annual fund raising signature event in recent times. But we came through. We want to thank many adult volunteers, the Fort Erie Conservation Club, and the students from GFESS. Of course, thanks to our sponsors, vendors, and media. Last but not least, thanks to the public for attending.

All in all, we had a great time, a great learning experience, and raised some decent funds for our community.