College students now have another reason to head downtown on the weekends.
The Wood County Humane Society will be hosting its “First Annual Puppy Crawl” fundraiser this Saturday, April 26 starting at 8 p.m.
Participants will be wearing vibrant turquoise T-shirts where they will travel downtown for a bar crawl. The only difference is that every person involved is free to go where they want throughout the night.
For $15 each, students and community members ages 18 and up can purchase a T-shirt either at the Wood County Humane Society, at participating businesses downtown or directly through Friends of the Wood County Humane Society vice president Luc Gibb.
With the purchase of the shirt, those 21 and up will receive discounted drink specials at 15 different bars and businesses downtown throughout the night, while those ages 18 to 20 can enjoy free or reduced cover charges.
Participating businesses include The Melt Shoppe, which will have special discounts for those wearing T-shirts. Other local businesses downtown will offer specials if wearing the shirt, such as Ink Mafia, Cla-Zel, Grumpy Dave’s, Stones Throw Tavern and Grill, One49, Brathaus and many others.
The Melt Shoppe manager Geoff Schwab talked about why they chose to get involved.
“Amar [The Melt Shoppe owner] is a big advocate of helping out the city,” Schwab said. “He loves the city of Bowling Green and anything that will help a charity is something we try to get involved in.”
Although this is only the event’s first year, many students as well as community members have expressed interest, Gibb said.
“We have about 300 shirts and we’re hoping to sell out based on the response we’ve gotten,” Gibb said. “It started out targeted toward the college students, but it’s expanded to be more of a community event; it’s really for anyone who loves animals.
Although Gibb is mostly responsible for the creation of the event, the fundraiser has many other people working and supporting behind the scenes.
WCHS Public Relations Chair Heath Diehl complimented the students on their efforts to help the animals and make this event a success.
“All I did was put together the press release; they did all the back work,” Diehl said. “I take no credit, they did a great job putting this together.”
In addition to profit from T-shirt sales, the Friends of the WCHS will also be having their annual “Hotdogs for Dogs” event until from 8 p.m. to 3 a.m. the night of the bar crawl in the community commons downtown, where they will be selling hot dogs as well as remaining T-shirts. The proceeds from this event will also benefit the WCHS.
Wood County Humane Society volunteer Rachael Sherry hopes that this event spreads the word about involvement with the WCHS.
“I think it’s important that people support this event and the shelter,” Sherry said. “Not only are you doing something that will benefit the animal’s lives, but they’re getting to experience what it feels like to help someone other than yourself.”
