Memories of Summer

Written By: David Stroud - Cashiers-Highlands Humane Society | Issue: September 2024 | Photograph By: Marty Boone

Before we look ahead to the autumn months with much-welcomed cooler temperatures and the most beautiful colors of the year, I would like to take one last look back at one of the greatest summer seasons in recent memory.

In June our annual signature gala returned to the Country Club of Sapphire Valley for the first time since before the COVID-19 pandemic. A completely re-themed event appropriately titled “Coming Home”, the evening turned out to be the second-largest fundraiser for CHHS in the past decade.

In conjunction with our Open House and 37th anniversary celebration, we also celebrated the Grand Opening of Misty’s Trail, a beautiful and serene half-mile path in the woods on our 10-acre campus for our beloved dog walking volunteers and CHHS shelter pups.

And I saved the best for last. In 2019, when we introduced Critter Camp, our summer series of week-long humane education day camps for local schoolchildren, I made the following statement: “This is the greatest community outreach program in our history.”

Five years later, I stand by that statement.

Critter Camp teaches important skills about responsible pet ownership, dog bite prevention, the importance of spay/neuter, kindness towards animals, compassion for their survival, and a respect for the habitat that we share. Critter Camp provides these amazing kids with the tools they need to be our animal welfare ambassadors of tomorrow.

The highlight of each week of Critter Camp is on Friday with what we call the “Graduation Hike.” This year’s series of Graduation Hikes were made all the more special because the hikes took place on our all-new Misty’s Trail. One of the special places on the trail is our “Rainbow Bridge Tree,” an arched trunk of a tree bending down to where we have mounted a plaque with a poem about the Rainbow Bridge.

It is always a great honor to serve as one of the adult chaperones for the Graduation Hike. Every time I have had the privilege to take that hike with these campers, it reminds me of another thing I said in 2019 when we launched this program.

“The future of animal welfare really doesn’t have much to do with animals. That may sound strange but it’s true. The future of animal welfare actually has everything to do with children.”

Cashiers-Highlands Humane Society is a 501(c)(3) non-profit no-kill shelter located at 200 Gable Drive in Sapphire, one-and-a-half miles east of the Cashiers Ingles in between Cedar Creek Club and Lonesome Valley on Highway 64. Visit us online at chhumanesociety.org or call (828) 743-5752 for more information. Tax-deductible donations to support our lifesaving work can be mailed to: CHHS, P.O. Box 638, Cashiers, NC 28717.