icarecathbobThe Eastern Sierra does love its animals. The annual ICARE fundraiser dinner at the Tri County Fairgrounds drew some 700 people on Saturday. Tickets, auctions and raffles brought in $30,000 to Inyo County Animal Resources & Education.

Whiskey Creek catered the dinner, sponsored by Union Bank, the Sierra Wave and LADWP. 4-H and AVID members served dinner. A lively auction of donated items quickly unfolded with KSRW’s Bob Todd and Catherine Hurdle at the helm. Raffle tickets for a dog-theme quilt donated by Quilters in Stitches brought in $1500. A bookcase built by ICARE president Ted Schade netted $1175 in the auction. Stan Smith and his energetic crew raised $4,366 for the 50/50 drawing. Bob Waggoner won and donated back half of his winnings – more than $1,000.

Ted and Lisa Schade, founders of ICARE, said proceeds totaled $30,000 which partially funds the ICARE spay-neuter program. Last year 750 icarecrowdspay/neuter surgeries cost $35,000. Donations are still needed.

ICARE has made a huge difference for pets. Since the organization started in 1996, impound of pets went down from 1,164 to 596 in 2010. Adoptions of pets went up from 82 to 301 and most significantly, euthanasias went from 970 pets destroyed in 1996 to 110 in 2010. Check out their website, www.icareforpets.org.

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