Champs Chance held its 2024 Pups and Pals Poker Run fundraiser on Saturday, March 2, an all day event that served to benefit the volunteer organizations efforts to help dogs with special medical needs, and hopefully find their forever homes.
The event began at the Tallahassee Harley Davidson store, where motorcycles and other vehicles gathered for a ride that would make stops at Sunburn Cannabis, the Getaway Bar and Grill, and Bradley’s Country Store.
A hand of poker was played at each stop, with a final stop at Off the Rails Irish Pub in Havana for more activities and entertainment, including live music from Lunar Urge, a cash bar, a raffle, a silent auction, and a chance to meet and even adopt some of the dogs currently cared for by the organization.
“The purpose of the event was to raise money for Champs Chance Rescue in Quincy, mainly for our medical bills,” said Alicia Bopp, who runs the organization. “We have a lot of pups with medical needs, and we have a lot of medical debt.”
Bopp explained that the organization is fairly new, having celebrated its first anniversary this past October, and is in need of funding for medical procedures that can cost over $1,000 each, such as CT Scans and heart surgery.
“We take in dogs from every situation you can think of,” said Daniella Flores, one of the volunteers who works with Bopp. “We pull a lot from kill shelters. That’s one of our main things. We also take in a lot of strays, abuse cases, neglect cases. The more traction we get, the more people we have reach out to us, and the bills do stack up. We run solely on individual donations. We don’t have any big corporate funding, so events like this are very important for the local community to help support us.”
Unfortunately, at least partly due to the rainy weather, the turnout for the event was not as large as Bopp had hoped.
Still, she estimates that around $1,000 was raised, and 3 or 4 applications were received for adoptions of dogs featured at the event, and hopes to hold another similar event this Summer, and definitely make the Poker Run an annual event.
Besides funding, Champ’s Chance is also in need of volunteers to help out with all aspects of care, including temporary fostering.
If you are interested in making a donation of time or money, fostering, or adopting one of these dogs, you can reach Champs Chance by phone at (850) 848-9440 or email at Champschance01@outlook.com. You can also find them online at champschance.org and on Facebook.
Stephen Klein – Gadsden County News Service
