With more than 600 votes as the favorite local non-profit, Kay Harris stepped into a money grab at Appalachian Community Bank Friday and left with $500 for the Dawson County Humane Society.

“We have so many special needs animals at the shelter right now. This money is going to go a long way to help us purchase a lot of the things we need,” said Harris, shelter director.

The cash grab at the bank Friday marked the end of a canned food drive event the bank sponsored to benefit the RIC Rack Food Pantry, which has seen record numbers of those needing assistance in the last several months.

Anyone who donated items to the food drive was eligible to vote for their favorite local non-profit agency. The agency with the most votes got to send a representative into the money grab.

“I was stuffing the money down my turtleneck,” said Harris, who was able to grab more than $60 and spent the days before sending out e-mails asking for votes. “The shelter depends on donations like this for so many things.”

She received a check for $500 from bank president Greg Tyre, who added the bank was happy to help out two of the county’s service organizations with one event.

“I want to thank the community for turning out to support our Together We Can food drive. We collected over 2,100 food items at our three drop-off locations. It’s great to see that in these economic times, our local community will band together to contribute for such a needed cause,” Tyre said.

RIC Rack Director Ken Newell said he was so impressed by the entire community’s effort. “That food will go a long way. We are feeding over 50 families each week. A big thank you from the RIC Rack,” he said. 

E-mail Michele Hester at michele@dawsonnews.com.