Zachary’s St. Pawty’s Day fundraiser continues for 5th year

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – It’s an event even your furry friend could attend.

Zachary’s hosted their 5th annual St. Patty’s Day event Sunday and is hoping to break their fundraising record.

It’s a day full of good music, food, drinks, and even pets.

Every year, Zachary’s shows their support for the Columbus-Lowndes Humane Society by hosting the St. Pawty’s day event and giving all the proceeds to the Humane Society.

Medicine, food, and even treatments, Pets need all of that but it costs money to provide for the rescues.

Outreach Coordinator of the Humane Society Brandy Johnson said receiving this money gives them a little relief when it comes to funds.

“It feels so good. Everybody is willing to learn to do better and be a better pet owner and help all the animals in Lowndes county. I started 2 weeks before the party last year and to watch it grow and get bigger and see everyone’s support warms my heart,” said Johnson.

Johnson said they bring in new pets all of the time and while they do love these fur babies it can be overwhelming.

“It is very expensive. We can comfortably house 200 animals on top of the animals we got back in February we took in an additional 189. So we need the money to come in we need help from the community and we need people to spay and neuter their pets to take care of the unwanted pet population and we just need to get our pets better,” said Johnson.

Host and owner of Zachary’s, Doug Pellum, said he is happy to bring the event back each year especially when it benefits people in the community.

“Any time we can help anyone that’s sick or has illness we try to help as much as we can. We are more than a restaurant. That’s what we try to tell people and we will help any way that we can,” said Pellum.

And that want to help all started when Pellum realized the struggles that the people who help the animals were having.

“We were just talking to people at the shelter and asked them what their budget was and we were kind of shocked what their budget was. This was five or six years ago and we decided to help them and didn’t realize how big it was going to be and we thought we could just give them a little bit and it just exploded and now it’s getting bigger and bigger every year,” said Pellum.

And as the “pawty” continues to grow Pellum said he is happy to accommodate the crowd.

“At this point in time, we just want it to get bigger and bigger. We will keep expanding this year we were able to block off the street out front, and use the courthouse lawn. We want it to get bigger and bigger and we will keep doing what we need to do,” said Pellum.

The goal this year was $40,000.

For 24/7 news and updates, follow us on Facebook and Twitter