Bow-Wow Crawl for Charity

It's that time of year again! The 7th Annual President's Day Bar (Bow Wow) Crawl! The theme year is ANIMALS! But not just any animal, one's own spirit animal; determined by which animal's name sounds closest to the attendee's actual first or last name. Examples: Jessica + Cat = Jessicat, Paul + Polar Bear = Pauler Bear, Elizabeth + Lizard = Elizardbeth, etc. Make sense? Great, so get your costume ready, find the animal inside you, and join us around Midtown, Washington D.C. for a fun-filled bar crawl.

 

Sound fun, albeit pointless? Well, maybe a little, but not entirely. We try to raise a little money for charity while we are at it. This year, in keeping with our animal theme we will be donating money to Homeward Trails (www.homewardtrails.org). Homeward Trails Animal Rescue is a non-profit organization that provides pet adoption in Virginia, Washington, DC and Maryland. They find homes for dogs and cats rescued from high-kill animal shelters or whose owners could no longer care for them or were found as strays.

 

This charity is near and dear to our hearts because it is local to the DC area, but Homeward Trails is also a kindred spirit and natural partner for our bar crawl. Why? Because, like our bar crawl, it started by accident. In December 2001, Founder Sue Bell was vacationing in Fayette County, WV when she happened upon the local animal shelter. During a quick stop to drop off biscuits, she was told the sad history of this shelter. Their facility had been hit by a flash flood a few months prior, drowning more than 50 animals. Now operating out of a small trailer, the shelter had little space to house the animals and the euthanasia rate was almost 98%. Sue and her husband rescued and found homes for three dogs that day. Sue didn't stop there and 13 years later more than 14,000 animals have been rescued. Homeward Trails is going strong and has no plans of stopping until every homeless dog and cat out there can be assured of a loving home. So, since we'll have close to 100 people dressed up in ridiculous animal costumes having a blast, we'd be remiss not to put those numbers to good use and do something good for the doggies and kitties in the area.

 

The accidental start to our bar crawl began in 2008 with a few friends getting together the Sunday before a day off from work and hopping around to a few bars in the area. We decided to make this a yearly tradition over the past 7 years 3 people turned into close to 100. Now this isn't your typical bar crawl. It's not put on by a big promotion company. We are grassroots. We don't sell wristbands or drink tickets or do any publicizing. It is the same crew that comes each year, only expanded by word of mouth, friends bringing other friends, or whatever strangers we run into along our journey. We aren't out to make money off this, nor will we ever. After the second year of this bar crawl it was apparent that it was getting popular and that we would have a large number of attendees. We decided two things at that point; we would have a new theme ever year and we would raise money for a charity that corresponded with that theme. We did a Disney themed Bar Crawl and raised money for a Give Kids the World (sends kids with life threatening illnesses to Disney World). We did a Video Game Character themed Bar Crawl and donated to Child's Play (provides sick children with games and entertainment). Just because this a bar crawl on President's Day weekend doesn't mean we need to park our imagination at the door and dress up like presidents every year. That's too easy. We like to keep it interesting.

Date: Sunday, February 15

Time: 1pm