Indoor Tournament Of Fun Raises Record Amount For Animal Causes

by Brendan Smith
Weirs Times Editor

In 2005, Starr Lawton never imagined the success that her “crazy” idea would become by 2019. She just wanted to do something to help animals.
The Annual Saving Animals Indoor Triathlon, held at Funspot in Weirs Beach, recently wrapped up its 15th year with a record number of participants and, most importantly, a record amount of monies raised -$57,000 – beating the 2017 record of $50,000.
Lawton, who is also the bar manager at Funspot’s D.A. Long Tavern, thought of the idea one rainy, summer day when some customers told her they were using their time at Funspot competing with each other playing three different games, having their own triathlon.
“I thought an Indoor Triathlon would be a fun and unique event that could be used to raise money for charity,” said Lawton.
Since then the event has grown from 11 teams and $1,000 raised that first year to the forty-two teams that competed this year and the record funds raised.

This year the money raised was divided between four worthy organizations whose work in saving animals has truly made a difference: Live and Let Live Farm in Chichester, Friends of the Feral Cats NH, Franklin Animal Shelter and Rozzie May Animal Alliance in Conway. For the first fourteen years the funds raised went strictly to the NH Humane Society, but it was decided this year to get other animal groups involved. The NH Humane Society participated as a Big Dog (major) sponsor of this year’s event and also fielded one of the forty-two teams.
The other Big Dog Sponsors, giving $1,000, were Union Diner and Hart’s Turkey Farm.

Lawton is now part of the group FUNds4paws, which was started up this year with the sole purpose of raising money through different fun events to be given to different animal rescue groups.
“We will be looking at increasing the number of rescue groups we can help going forward,” said Lawton. “The Triathlon is planned to now be just one of many fun events we will be organizing in order to raise the money so desperately needed by these essential organizations.”
Known as the “Triathlon For The Rest Of Us” the Indoor version consists of teams of four competing for the high score in a series of games at Funspot including: candlepin bowling, indoor mini-golf, skee-ball, darts and pinball with the highest scoring team winning prizes.

Many of the teams are busy doing fundraising for weeks before the Triathlon and that in itself has become a key part of the competition.
“We introduced the fundraising portion of the competition into the Triathlon about ten years ago,” said Lawton. “That first year we more than doubled our fundraising because of it and it has grown by leaps and bounds to get to where it is today. The teams take it seriously but have a lot of fun with it and their efforts have gotten us to a point I couldn’t imagine fifteen years ago. What this money does to help these groups and these animals is so important.”
Also added this year was a website where participants could watch the fundraising totals of the different teams change, motivating them to ramp up their own fundraising efforts.
“It just made the whole fundraising portion that much more fun for the players,” said Lawton.

For every five hundred dollars raised, each team member received on entry into the drawing for the “Big Pledge Prize Raffle” which this year was a five-day cruise for two to the Bahamas or Caribbean.
The top fundraising team for the event, as well as the overall winner, was the Union Diner Dogs who raised an impressive $4,208.
“Rose Pucci and the crew at the Union Diner did an amazing job this year in raising money for the Triathlon,” said Lawton. “We can’t thank them enough for their hard work and the animals appreciate it as well.”
All together about $38,000 of the total was raised strictly from individual team fundraising.
There were also many area businesses who helped add to the fundraising efforts by selling “I Helped Save Animals” bones.
Among the other fundraising done at the Triathlon were the donated auction items: A Larry Bird autographed picture and a framed montage of famous Boston Team Brawls donated by Kelly Ross and Bruins pucks signed by Patrice Bergeron and Charlie McAvoy as well as a pair of tickets to the opening playoff game of the Bruins donated by Sterling and Allison Cole.

The fifty-fifty raffle also brought in another $1,000.
Besides the Big Dog Sponsors, other businesses which sponsored the Triathlon were The Franklin Savings Bank, Northeast Communications (Mix 94.1, WSCY 106.9fm, The Planet 100.1fm, Oldies 92.9) Funspot and The Weirs Times and Cocheco Times).
FUNds4Paws is already looking towards other fun events to raise more funds to help more groups that help save more animals.
“We have a lot of ideas in the works,” said Lawton. “For example we are already making some plans to have a Food Truck event. Of course, we are already going to work on making next year’s triathlon bigger and better.”
To find out more about FUNds4paws visit FUNDs4paws.org or check out their Facebook page.

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