This fundraiser included, purchasing egg packages and delivering those eggs to members of the communities for their children to find on Easter. The thought of the COVID-19 virus impacting families in our local areas was devastating to us, so we came up with a fundraiser that would benefit us as well as our local communities.
It was a non-contact fundraiser where we filled the Easter eggs up with candy — practicing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Guidelines for everyone’s safety. Then, the eggs were placed in people’s yards for Easter egg hunts on April 11 or 12.
The K9 Department’s Founder and K-9 handler Nicole Yohnnson, Chief Tom Yohnnson and Capt. Jason Penwell had taken all the orders in, and devised a plan on how to have a completely successful fundraiser for their K-9 department.
With the help of their whole K-9 department members sharing the digital flyer on social media, they did just that. The fundraiser brought in over $600, which 100 percent of the Easter Package profits benefits the Burlington County K-9 Search and Rescue. This money will go towards general insurance coverage payments, vehicle maintenance and fuel, education and equipment.
The Burlington County K-9 Search and Rescue Department has been in service since 2009. We are a 501C3 volunteer organization composed of close to 30 people, composed of military, retired law enforcement, EMTs and firefighters who want to make a difference in their community. We train our K-9’s to find missing people. We are not county- or state-funded. We have been on many local high-profile missing persons cases in the area. We are the people behind the scenes that assist with law enforcement to make every search mission a success for the families.
We are just elated to see how much our local communities supported us such as Shamong, Tabernacle, Medford, Medford Lakes, Joint Base McGuire-Fort Dix-Lakehurts, Pemberton, Mount Holly, Burlington and so many more. We had families pay extra to donate eggs to other families who may not be able to afford it at this time. Our members delivered those donated eggs and made those children extremely happy during this crazy time. Our members had such a great time doing this, we are planning on doing it again next Easter.
The Burlington County K-9 Search & Rescue solely runs off of donations. If you are interested in donating, you may do so via Venmo by visiting Venmo.com/BCK9SAR, or mail checks to Burlington County K-9 Search & Rescue, P.O. Box 2235, Medford Lakes, NJ 08088.
