Animal Shelter Holds Biggest Fundraiser of Year

The Muskingum County Animal Shelter is holding its biggest fundraiser of the year.

A group of more than 200 people packed into one of Zane State-Ohio University-Zanesville’s banquet halls to have some dinner and to do some bidding.

Executive Director, Larry Hostetler says the animal shelter is always in desperate need of money.

“The more money we have, the more we can do. With the state of the economy, we’ve felt the problems too. So, we’re always in jeopardy of not being able to do what we do, ” says Hostetler.

Hostetler says he’s hoping for the best.

“I would love to see if we would break 30 thousand dollars. That would be a record, but my motto is if we make a dollar, that’s a dollar more than we had when we started today, ” says Hostetler.

The Animal Shelter is also celebrating it’s 50th anniversary.

“We’ve come a long way in 50 years, and it’s been a lot of hard work, a lot of dedication from a lot of people…A great community that we live in that we have so much support from. So, we’re focusing on that and kind of saying our thank you’s to everybody for what they’ve helped us do for 50 years, ” says Hostetler.

Hostetler says some of his employees put together a presentation featuring what the first Animal Shelter looked like, which housed only about 20 animals. He says they now can care for about 400.