Students hold auction in of support animals

By Mo Cranker

BELLEVILLE – Two Loyalist College students will put the focus on homeless pets by hosting Paw Prints 2015 from Feb. 23 to 26.

Emily Gebhardt and Lindsay Conley, two third-year graphic design students, will  be spearheading the fundraiser for the first time. They do not have a set goal this year.

“Paw Prints is a silent auction that we set up and all of the proceeds will go to the Quinte Humane Society. We both came up with the idea. We both love animals and we both wanted to set something up to help them,” said Conley.

The silent auction will feature a wide selection of art that will be sold to the highest bidders of the day. There will also be buttons and bookmarks sold for $2.00 each and jars filled with pet treats that people can guess on, the closest guess will win the contents of the jar.

The girls will also be accepting non-monetary donations as well, including food, litter, and toys. The list of wish list items can be found here.

“We’re going for collecting wish list items for the humane society like rubber gloves, that aren’t money but just things,” said Gebhardt.

One of the main goals of Paw Prints 2015 is to bring light to the importance of adopting animals.

“I wanted to get people to understand why adopting is important,” said Conley.

“There’s a lot of animals that need homes that aren’t in puppy stores, a lot of our pets are ones that were strays,” added Gebhardt.

This is the first year that the auction will be running although the girls will graduate soon, they have high hopes for the future of the event.

“We’re hoping that some second years will take it over next year,” said Conley.

The humane society has been running independently since the early 1970’s and houses up to 3,000 homeless animals throughout the year. It is a non-for-profit organization and is run solely off of donations from the public.

To check out some of the art being auctioned off check out their Facebook and Twitter pages.