No name in Brown County is more associated with animals than “Doc” James Brester.
For that reason, a plan is in the works to name a room at the new Brown County Humane Society animal shelter after him.
To make that happen, the Brown County community is being asked to meet a matching donation challenge to go toward building the new shelter. From now until Oct. 31, the Howard Hughes Legacy Pass-through Fund will match all donations up to $100,000, giving the shelter project a much-needed boost of up to $200,000.
If the $100,000 goal is reached, the treatment room at the new shelter will be named the Dr. James Brester Animal Treatment Room.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]As of Sept. 4, the shelter fundraising team had collected pledges totaling $2,777,087 toward the $3.2 million needed to build the shelter, leaving a gap of $422,913.
On Sunday, Oct. 6, the humane society will stage a fundraising event at the Bean Blossom Animal Clinic, which Brester founded in 1966, to try to close that gap and meet the $100,000 matching challenge. From 2 to 5 p.m., the event will include light refreshments, live music and “Doc Brester stories.”
Brester retired in August 2017, selling his clinic to a veterinarian group from Franklin.
Hughes, a Brown County resident and businessman who passed away in December 2011, left a fund with the Brown County Community Foundation to continue to benefit community causes, said longtime friend Marcia Likens.
“By making these matching dollars available, he wanted to incentivize giving at all levels, and still giving to things you were passionate about. This matching challenge was something he did during his lifetime, and that’s why I choose to do it for so much of the grant-making,” she said.
Hughes didn’t have a pet himself because he traveled so much, Likens said, but he did like animals, and more than once he asked friends to consider “time-sharing” a pet with him. “Nobody took him up on that offer,” Likens said.
As a businessman and as an animal lover, Hughes also was an admirer of Dr. Brester’s.
“He understood that the Bean Blossom Animal Clinic had a true gift in Doc Brester,” Likens said. “And I don’t know if there’s anyone that understands the hours that man committed, both in a paid capacity and his volunteerism.”
When she noticed that the animal treatment room in the shelter plans had not been funded yet, “it seemed right that it carry Doc Brester’s name,” she said.
“If you ever had Doc Brester look at your animal, you know the man and you’d want to recognize him.”
The new shelter is to be built beside the current one on State Road 135 South just south of the State Road 46 intersection.
The current shelter was built in 1987, and it’s been patched together to the point where it doesn’t make sense to repair it anymore, said humane society board President Sue Ann Werling. The foundation is cracked and shifting, water leaks have caused major damage, the roof needs to be replaced and the ventilation system is inadequate.
At 4,000 square feet, it’s also way too small to meet the needs of the shelter staff and volunteers and the animals they take in. On average, that number is 730 animals per year.
Rooms are used for multiple purposes — such as the lobby doubling and tripling as a cat dormitory and a place where animals are gathered for spay/neuter surgeries. And there is no place to segregate surrendered animals that might be sick from the general population, Werling told the town council last month. They just have to go back to an open kennel with all the others.
Floor plans for the new 9,100-square-foot shelter include indoor meet-and-greet rooms for potential adopters to get to know animals; an area for people to privately meet with shelter staff to surrender their pets; and an education center for community events; as well as larger and redesigned spaces for animals to live until they find homes.
Humane society supporters quietly launched the shelter fundraising campaign many months ago and have been making a more public push over the summer to raise the last half-million dollars.
No groundbreaking date has been set yet.
In July and August, Werling asked county government for $300,000 and town government for $15,000 toward the shelter project. Pledges could be fulfilled over as many as three years, she said. The county council denied her request last month after it went through its 2020 budgets; the town council couldn’t give her an answer right away, as it is still working on its budgets.
The shelter operates mostly on donations and volunteer labor. For 2020, county leaders approved giving the humane society a total of $67,000 toward its operations expenses. The organization also receives 50 percent of the town dog license fees the town collects from town residents each year — which might amount to $15 or $20, Werling said.
The Werling Charitable Foundation also is donating up to $1 million in matching funds toward the shelter building project for donations by individuals. While some of those dollars have been claimed with matches, not all of them have.
Donations that come in through Oct. 31 will not be double-matched by both matching grant challenges.
Donors should state to which challenge they wish their money to be applied. If they’re wanting their donation to go toward the Dr. Brester namesake challenge, they should write “in honor of Doc Brester” or the “Hughes Challenge” on their checks, Likens suggested. “We want to make sure donor dollars go where they’re meant.”
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What: A fundraiser honoring Doc Brester to raise money to name the Dr. James Brester Animal Treatment Room at the new Brown County Humane Society shelter
Who: The Brown County Humane Society and the Brown County Community Foundation
Where: Bean Blossom Animal Clinic, 4915 State Road 135 North
When: Sunday, Oct. 6, 2 to 5 p.m.
Why: To honor Doc Brester’s more than 52 years of dedicated service to the animals of our community and raise money for the new shelter.
Details: Light refreshments, music, Doc Brester stories
How to help: For a limited time, the Howard Hughes Legacy Pass-through Fund at the Brown County Community Foundation will match all donations, up to $100,000. All donations will go through the fund’s account at the BCCF.
Can’t go?: People unable to attend the Oct. 6 event can donate to honor Doc Brester through Oct. 31 at UnLeashBC.com.
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