Stay-At-Home Order Forces Animal Humane Society To Take #WalkForAnimals Virtual This Weekend

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- This Saturday is the biggest fundraiser of the year for the largest animal shelter in Minnesota. Unfortunately, the Animal Humane Society's Walk for Animals was cancelled due to the stay-at-home order in place.

But that doesn't mean that you can't still help the organization this weekend.

While most of the world is staying at home, some four-legged friends are looking for one. And the demand is huge.

"Now the governor has allowed us to start doing animal adoptions virtually," Animal Humane Society employee Molly Morgan said. "We put 5 puppies up for adoption, those went on our website last night, and we had over 250 people respond."

They post a few animals online, and then the owners come in one at a time to meet their new family members, and take them to their new forever homes.

These adoptions are only possible through donations.

"Typically around this time we have 8,000-plus people coming to Golden Valley to walk around Theodore Wirth Park," Janelle Dixon, the CEO of the Animal Humane Society, said.

The Walk for Animals is the Animal Humane Society's largest annual fundraiser and they usually bring in about $1 million. This year, they're hoping to do it virtually.

"We're probably going to fall short because so much money comes in the day of, people coming in to celebrate and participate, and we don't have that day-of thing," Dixon said.

Dixon hopes online donations still come in on Saturday, the day the fundraiser walk was supposed to happen. And she also hopes people still walk, even if it's not together.

"We're asking people to get out at 10 a.m., walk through their yard, around their block, the park, on the treadmill, whatever works," Dixon said.

If you'd like to take part in tomorrow's virtual Walk for Animals, we've put the information up here. There you can also donate and join team WCCO. If you participate, the Animal Humane Society asks that you post a picture or video of your walk and use the hashtags #StillWalking and #WalkForAnimals.