“One minute left,” Marilyn Wheaton announced as she fanned herself with her hands.
The excitement and anxiety were palpable.
Even with a laptop on her legs, Wheaton’s knee bounced as she pulled statistics from a website to copy them into her trusty spreadsheet—a familiar practice, as she visited the site multiple times daily to check on vote totals and provide screen capture updates to those following the effort on social media.
“Are we on Facebook Live?!” she asked while looking into a cell phone camera. Yes, they were. “There’s only one minute left, you guys!” she screamed to the audience.
“7-3-3-4…. They are at 6-7-8-0,” Wheaton said, sharing the latest number of votes with the folks on Facebook and in the room.
Judge Doom, a black cat, rested comfortably while being cradled in the arms of Public Information Director Jennifer Tatum Harris, as she swayed left and right. He was the only one in the room who seemed somewhat calm. Fitting, when you’re the acting emotional support cat.
“Aaa! One o’clock!”
This was the moment everyone in Eileen Mahan’s office was anticipating. Mahan, the Director of the Animal Care and Adoption Center in Montgomery County, watched as Wheaton, Volunteer and Education Coordinator, delivered a play-by-play of vote totals. The current environment in her office easily could be likened to an election night: tallies, nervousness, sweaty hands, people popping in and out of the room for updates. The only major difference may have been the presence of the unsuitably named Judge Doom, and that this was not an election at all.
The initial excitement began a month prior when the ACAC landed a $5,000 Holiday Wishes grant from the PetCo Foundation after Wheaton penned an essay about her dog Ginny’s impact on her life and career. That win put the Center in the running for a $25,000 grant from the Foundation. The catch? It was a People’s Choice Award with web voting open for more than a month.
The Center’s main plea for votes was spurred by social media, but with less than 6,000 followers on Facebook, it was a bit of an underdog. One organization consistently in the top 5 vote-getting group had an astounding 600-thousand followers! This day, the closest competition was a Sacramento city shelter, Front Street, with more than 175-thousand followers.
Over the weekend, the Center’s first place standing, which it had earned and maintained since Dec. 1, was in jeopardy. Front Street closed in on the Center’s 2,000-vote lead, gaining over 1,000 votes overnight. As Front Street continued its push on social media, the lead began to shrink even further.
It was one o’clock, plus a handful of seconds. By this point, volunteer Marianne Walsh, Shelter Assistant Laura Cox, and a three-legged or “tri-pawed” Jack Russell pup named Roxie waited in Mahan’s doorway. In the lobby, Adoption-Rescue Coordinator Shannon Porter and Office Assistant Kelly Stanley continued greeting visitors and facilitating adoptions. (One dog, two mice, and four cats would find furever homes that day, including Judge Doom.)
“Did we do it?” Wheaton asked, holding her hand to her cheek and staring at her laptop screen. Concern crossed her face as she questioned whether the voting was actually closed.
The website appeared to accept additional votes but Wheaton’s laptop clock read 1:00.
“Maybe it ends at one o’clock… minute?” The room erupted with laughter, a much needed moment of levity.
“I don’t know how to tell if voting is closed,” Wheaton said as she began searching for answers. As uncertainty filled the room, she tried voting for their neighbors to the east, Lynchburg Humane, to test the site. Those present offered theories for what was happening.
Web browsers were refreshed. The things that used to be easy to remember became questions for Google. (When is noon CST, again?)
“Did we unofficially win?” Google couldn’t answer that question.
“I don’t know.”
“I think we unofficially won. Unofficially,” Wheaton said cautiously.
“I think we just declared ourselves as the winner,” Walsh affirmed.
“I don’t want to celebrate too hard.”
As the Public Information Director, Harris never fails to find the positive talking points. “Can we say that we feel like we won because of all the support?”
And, as if on cue, the community that had been there from the beginning chimed in.
Multimedia Producer Derley Aguilar read a comment that popped up on the Facebook Livestream: “Gwendolyn Sewell says ‘I got a screen saying they’re validating votes!’”
The breaths from the sighs of relief could have inflated 10,000 balloons.
“Heather Foster confirms, ‘12 pm cst is 1 pm est. We win.’”
Well, that did it—unofficially, of course.
Hiding behind the cell phone the whole time, Aguilar thought she would be able to control the waterworks. She was wrong. And just like a contagious yawn in a room full of people, it spread. Wheaton’s knee bounces were replaced by tears of joy and celebratory giggles.
Mahan held it together in all the excitement and addressed the Facebook audience. “We could not have done this without this community. You guys are so amazing. To be able to compete against all of these other shelters nationally and huge cities like Sacramento and Oakland… and to be able to get this many votes for our community is just so amazing.”
Later that evening, the results were deemed official. The Montgomery County Animal Care and Adoption Center won the People’s Choice Award, a $25,000 grant from PetCo Foundation!
Holiday Wishes do come true.
— Derley Aguilar,
Multimedia Producer, Montgomery County Public Information Office
