They could have just given up.
In June 2022, Jefferson County voters rejected a proposed levy to build and support a Boulder animal shelter. The proposal, which would have cost property owners an extra $265,365 each year, was almost identical to one voters had refused by the slimmest of margins two years prior. This time, though, the vote wasn’t close. The dream seemed dead.
“We were really discouraged,” recalled Cheryl Haasakker, president of Animal Shelter and Care of Jefferson County (AS&C), the citizen-led non-profit behind the proposal.
Yet somehow, on June 28, three years after that second failed levy, Jefferson County’s first-ever animal shelter officially opened its doors. It was much smaller than the initial vision, and with no paid staff, but still: A shelter happened. I’d like to take a moment to celebrate that success, describe how it happened, and unpack some insights that might help other, similar efforts.
Way back in 2008, Haasakker and a small volunteer crew zeroed in on a real problem: the steady increase in Jefferson County’s stray animal population. The group began fundraising and hosted twice-a-year vaccination and low-cost spay and neutering clinics.
They recruited volunteers to take in lost animals until their owners could be found. Pretty soon, though, “we were just drowning with all the growth in the north end” of the county, Haasakker said. Abandoned dogs turned up on Strawberry Mountain, off Highway 518 near the Ash Grove factory, at the Montana City Store.
Collecting them involved a lot of work for volunteers and the Sheriff’s Office. It was also a financial drain: the county has to pay $125 for each dog handed over to the Lewis & Clark County shelter, in addition to deputies’ time spent picking up and delivering the animals.
Haasakker and her team saw the answer: A shelter for up to 30 dogs and 42 cats, a temporary way-station for lost and stray animals. They held public meetings to build interest and received county funding to travel to Texas to check out a factory-made shelter kit.
They also faced obstacles. Most foundation grants available at the time required shelter operators to already have land in hand, which AS&C did not. It nearly secured a Bureau of Land Management parcel, amid whispers of a five-acre donation from a private owner, but both offers evaporated.
The County Commission supported the idea of better animal control, but since the recent shuttering of area mines, its resources had been stretched thin. So, in 2019, to raise funds to build and operate the shelter, AS&C began working to build support for a mill levy.
The proposal appeared on the June 2020 ballot, and voters turned it down by fewer than 40 votes. Two years later, facing vocal opposition from those who thought the project too expensive, the levy failed again – by a much larger margin. AS&C was back to square one.
At that point, no one would have blamed Haasakker and her team for giving up. But that’s not what happened. “We just decided, we’ve gone so far, let’s keep going,” Haasakker told me.
The county’s need for a shelter, they saw, wasn’t going away; the problem of stray animals was only getting worse. The group decided to scale their plan down to a smaller, volunteer-staffed building that could meet some demand — and, perhaps, lay a foundation for the future.
I admit, I thought they were crazy. Their budget seemed too daunting, and community support lukewarm at best. I never thought they’d pull it off.
It turns out, they *were* crazy — but in the best way, like most successful entrepreneurs. Haasakker and her crew stayed committed, continued to believe, and found ways to overcome a seemingly endless series of hurdles bit by bit, dollar by dollar.
After the levy vote, AS&C still had $25,000 in the bank. That was enough to buy a $22,000 kit for a 20-foot by 35-foot steel shell. That would be big enough for four dogs — more in warmer weather — and up to 14 cats. The group leased a 2.6-acre property at 23 Muskrat Lane for a dollar a year from the City, and installed a concrete foundation.
Excavation and other services were provided for free or at a discount by local contractors. Builder Giles Nix introduced Haasakker to his rep at Home Depot, who offered a discount on sheet rock and a corporate donation to the project.
The group still needed more money to finish the job. So, as ever, “we fundraised, just a little bit at a time,” Haasakker said. This was board member Darlene Moyer’s turf. Her annual “Walk and Wag” event at the shelter site made about $2,000 every year. “For the Love of Paws,” a bigger event at The Kleffner, netted $3,000 to $7,000. She put together community nights at games of the Helena Senators and Big Horns, and non-profit bingo events at Missouri River Brewing.
$500 here, $1,000 there; it was a ton of work, but it added up. “It is exhausting,” Moyer said. “There were a few times when I was like, am I really making a difference? But in four years, we raised $80,000. When you say that out loud, you think: Wow it’s really working.”
With endless hustling, friendly discounts, and in-kind donations, the budget turned out to be totally doable. The community didn’t like the levy, but it saw the value of taming the county’s animal control challenge. And finally, there was Haasakker’s steel-willed determination. “This was always going to work,” said AS&C board member Jackie Colombe, “because Cheryl is a bulldog.”
Board members Colombe and Barb Reiter built out AS&C’s volunteer rolls. At recent fundraisers, it’s been more than just the same four people manning the door. And 27 volunteers have signed up to take shifts caring for animals at the shelter. Colombe observed: “Cheryl, Barb, Darlene and I, we’ve lived here for decades. We know lots of people. It’s friends helping friends. And people are excited because I’m excited.”
The lesson: Passion and persistence are infectious. People are waiting to be inspired, ready to be asked to pitch in. The original shelter was too big and too expensive a project at the wrong moment. But the need was real, and as more people came to see and appreciate AS&C’s work, they pitched in.
“I’m awe-inspired by their dedication,” said Leonard Wortman, who was chair of the County Commission when the shelter levies failed. “They’ve fought and fought. It’s not what they envisioned originally, but they made it work.”
AS&C’s board members say they haven’t lost sight of their original vision. “Our hope is that one day, that bigger building will get built,” Haasakker told me. The modest new shelter has created a central location for people to drop off lost or stray animals, easing the logistics for the Sheriff’s Office and volunteers — but really, they say, four dog beds isn’t enough.
They’d like there to be room for a visiting vet, and an autoclave for spay and neutering. Now that some brick and mortar is in place, they hope to apply for grants for improvements and equipment.
Personally, I still think they’re crazy – which is why they achieved their dream.
