Stephen Memorial Animal Shelter Celebrates Service To Mahaska Community

The public came out to support Stephen Memorial Animal Shelter this past weekend, and celebrate its 45 years in the community.

The public came out to support Stephen Memorial Animal Shelter this past weekend, and celebrate its 45 years in the community.

Oskaloosa, Iowa – Under the shade of some large trees on the Southern Iowa Fairgrounds, Stephen Memorial Animal Shelter Celebrated 45 years of service in Mahaska County.

Terry Gott, the current director at the shelter, took advantage of the event to also say goodbye to the place he’s been a part of for over a decade now.

Fun for the families included a dunk tank, petting zoo, bounce houses from Lazer Alley, Snow Biz, games, and a bake sale.

There was also pizza, burgers, hot dogs, and music under the new shelter in the southeast corner of the fairgrounds.

One of those in the dunk tank was Mahaska County Supervisor Mark Groenendyk. He volunteered for an hour-long shift to help raise money for the organization.

“It’s good. It’s all fun,” said Groenendyk of being in the hot seat, or platform, as individuals paid a fee for softballs in an effort to dunk him. “I’m excited to see people out and about.”

About that time, a new person steps up to toss a few softballs, and Groenendyk gives some friendly banter.

Gott started as a kennel worker and worked his way up to animal control. “It’s been fun. I can’t say that I regret what I’m doing because I love what I’m doing, but it’s time for me to step down and get some new blood in there.”

“I thank everybody for their support,” added Gott, who’s last day is scheduled to be October 29th.

Shanna Smith has been tabbed to replace Gott and has been serving as the Assistant Director.

Gott says that, at this point, the shelter is full of animals looking for new homes. In addition, the animal shelter has been stressed as many stray dogs have been brought in, and the owners haven’t been claiming their animals.

Stephen Memorial has a new form of operation and is now a self-funded. So, besides the fees paid for animals, Stephen Memorial also does contract work for the government entities within the county performing animal control to support itself.

“The transition has gone better than we thought it was going to,” said Gott of the reorganization process. “It was biting nails for the first month.”

Groenendyk, putting the platform back in place and trying to stay warm after being dunked several times, joked that he’ll probably have pneumonia the first part of the week and climbed back onto the hot seat at the dunk tank.

Posted by on Sep 22 2021. Filed under Local News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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