This weekend, Helping Strays’ shelter animals received 24 hours of love and attention, with volunteers and staff even sleeping in their kennels with them. 

Helping Strays, along with 16 other area shelters, spent the weekend raising funds and promoting adoption awareness as part of the St. Louis Area Slumber Pawty, with Purina joining in the fun as the presenting sponsor. 

Each participating animal care organization did their “pawty” a little differently. Helping Strays kicked off its open house celebration Saturday with “Rescue Readers,” an activity where volunteers read to shelter animals. As shelter manager Brittany Reilly explained, every pawty activity was geared toward making the animals happy. 

“We’re all focused on the animals this year,” she said at the event’s start. “We didn’t want to do anything like music or stuff like that because it stresses the animals out, so we’re having dinner, a movie and yoga. The staff is going to do a play group demonstration for anybody that’s here during the time for playgroups to show how we introduce dogs to other dogs and why it’s important for the dogs to get out and get socialized with other dogs.” 

Raising shelter awareness and increasing adoptions were some of the event’s goals. The other, part-time staffer and volunteer Alice Imhof explained, was raising donations. 

Individual shelter staff and volunteers raised funds, each having their own goals, but community members could also donate to the shelter through links on its website and social media, as well as in person. 

Within the first hour of the Slumber Pawty, Imhof and many others were so close to meeting their personal goals that they decided to raise the bar. 

“We were just asking for small amounts, because all of those little small amounts add up. I put on my Facebook page ‘Would you consider donating $10?’ Nobody donated $10. They all donated $25 or $50,” Imhof said. 

While the Slumber Pawty is an initiative spanning across the region, Reilly said every penny raised went toward the shelter that raised it. 

As of Sunday night, Helping Strays of Monroe County raised $15,500. It will continue collecting pawty donations through Thursday. 

“They all go directly back here to the shelter for the animals, for things like heartworm treatment, surgery for the animals or just basic care,” Reilly said. 

In 2017, Gateway Pet Guardians in East St. Louis first started the Slumber Pawty, and from there it grew to reach other shelters. Helping Strays joined in the fun in 2019, yet COVID thwarted pawty plans in 2020 and 2021. 

Like all shelter operations, Helping Strays’ slumber pawtys of past and present are not possible without shelter staff, volunteers and the community at large. 

Dennis Patton, the shelter’s interim director, reiterated this as a room full of animal lovers gathered for Saturday night’s dinner and movie, just before volunteers snuggled into their bedrooms for the night – which were cat rooms and extended dog kennels. 

Shorty’s Smokehouse, JV’s Downtown Bar & Grill, the Columbia Subway and Waterloo Papa Johns donated food for the dinner, but the involvement of local businesses didn’t stop there. 

“Mandy McGuire’s real estate group came out last week because they couldn’t be here (this weekend) and took a tour and took a video that they’re going to put on social media for us of all the different things that we’re doing. We’ve received lots of financial donations from businesses, we didn’t go out and seek any from businesses because we have our big fundraiser coming up, Cause for Paws,” Patton said. 

The annual gala will be held June 17. Stay tuned for more details as the event nears by visiting helpingstrays.org.

The no-kill animal shelter is located at 4221 Hanover Road north of Waterloo.