Genevieve McCorquodale and Lorne Warr are grateful for what the Coast Animal Welfare and Education Society (CAWES) has done for their cat Midnight they say it saved his life and wanted to do something in return. They organized an online auction of items donated by the community and are planning a concert that will feature Warr and his band, the Streels, on June 16 at Cates Hill Chapel.
McCorquodale and Warr have two cats, Moon and Midnight. McCorquodale recalled a time when she was away for the weekend and her friend Rosalee Parish, who was looking after the cat, had to rush him to a pet emergency room on the mainland. "Midnight had crystals in the urinary tract," she says. "We were lucky that Rosalee recognized this and took him to the vet. But it took $3500 to fix this." McCorquodale explains that when the crystals block the urinary tract, the condition quickly worsens and can lead to death.
After this episode, McCorquodale used to joke that Midnight was the "most expensive free thing" she ever got but she didn't feel like joking when he displayed the same symptoms again. The couple had just had a new baby and McCorquodale had taken some time off work. "I just remembered the price tag and I was devastated," McCorquodale says.
The couple took Midnight to Alistair Westcott, the local vet, and explained their predicament. The vet's reaction was straight forward. "No cat is going to die because money is an issue," he said, according to McCorquodale, and directed them to seek help from CAWES. The couple paid for nearly half of the treatment and CAWES chipped in the rest. "We are so grateful that we thought, 'What can we do? Let's do a concert,'" McCorquodale says. She created the website for the fundraiser and worked with Iris Carr from CAWES and other volunteers to gather items for the auction. To date, the auction sets at almost $2000 and the bidding will continue until the day of the event. For more info, see cawesbenefit.blogspot.ca/.
The benefit comes from McCorquodale and Warr's desire to give back and they have devoted a lot of time and effort to make it a success 100 per cent of the proceeds from the auction, the refreshments and the draw will go to CAWES, the ticket sales ($12 per person) will help to cover the costs. "That is what a community does," says McCorquodale.
