It's no secret how much I love animals and my passion for animal welfare and rescue is something everyone knows about me. What you may not know though is that that particular passion grew out of volunteering at the Lawrence Humane Society my entire childhood.

The Lawrence Humane Society gave me an inside, in-depth look at how much work running a shelter really is. It's not all puppy kisses, kitten snuggles, and heartwarming adoption events - it's physically hard, emotionally laborious work with a LOT of cleaning involved. And it's made all the harder when you're doing this in an aging, inadequate, and failing facility that is long overdue for replacement.

Despite a building whose infrastructure is working against them, the staff at the Lawrence Humane Society save over 3,800 animals a year. They not only help animals in Douglas County, but they take in animals from all over the state - one of the few shelters willing to do that. And when Hurricane Harvey hit Houston, they took in dogs from Houston as well. They know what it means to be good neighbors and truly embody the sentiment from former Senator Paul Wellstone: "We all do better when we all do better."

The Lawrence Humane Society has been an incredible resource to me over the last three years. Any time I couldn't find homes for foster kittens or dogs, LHS took them in and found them loving homes. They even took in an overwhelmingly terrified and aggressive young German Shepherd that was going to be put down in Wichita, worked with her, rehabilitated her, and found her a loving forever home.

It's time for the Lawrence Humane Society to have a new shelter, one that isn't falling down around them, that's up to industry standards, that has proper airflow and filtration, that has a dedicated medical clinic, that has enough SPACE so that they can save more animals!

I'm asking for your support. My birthday is November 9th and if we were hanging out, you'd likely buy me a beer. I'm asking that instead of that beer, you donate to the capital campaign to help the Lawrence Humane Society build the kind of shelter the animals and community deserve, one that the entire state will benefit from. You'll have my gratitude and the gratitude of all the animals that your donation will help save.

Every pet deserves a happy, healthy life. For more than 3,800 lost and homeless animals in our community each year, that chance begins at the Lawrence Humane Society.

The Lawrence Humane Society is a critically-needed local resource for Douglas County and Lawrence, but is being held back by limitations of an aging, inadequate, and failing facility that is long overdue for replacement. By building a new, state-of-the-art shelter facility, the benefits to both pets and people are clear: more lives will be saved; the number of homeless and abandoned animals will be reduced; and most importantly, families will be strengthened -- by having the space to find the right home for every pet, and by helping keep pets and people together for the long-haul.

We need the community's help to make this project a reality.

Whether you can chip in $5 or $5,000, every dollar will make a difference to the thousands of animals that will receive care, life-saving medical treatment, and love in our new facility. Donate now or become a fundraiser to help us reach our $7.5 million fundraising goal by the end of 2017.

Want to make a bigger impact? Set up a personal fundraising page of your own and get involved ... for them! Click here for personal page setup instructions!

Learn more about the FOR THEM Capital Campaign by clicking here.