Rotary, Kiwanis team up to fund K9 program

MOSES LAKE — When the Rotary Club of Moses Lake and Kiwanis Club got together for a golf tournament in June, it was for a good cause.

They raised nearly $12,800 for the Grant County Sheriff’s K9 program.

“We got together, the Kiwanis and the Rotary, to talk about different projects,” said Dave Campbell, the president elect of Rotary. “The K9 program was a pretty easy sell. There was a great amount of support, and we sold out all the sponsorships.”

The donations were needed because the Grant County Sheriff’s Department wouldn’t have a canine program without them.

“Donations pay for everything. They are paramount to keeping the program successful,” said Kyle Foreman, a sheriff’s department spokesman.

Foreman said the department has been able to raise about $80,000 over the last three years, enough to equipment the department with three patrol dogs capable of tracking and apprehending suspects or seeking out the lost, as well as regularly train them and their handlers.

“There is monthly training with their handlers. They go up in helicopters, repelling down buildings, there’s a lot of diverse training,” Foreman said. “It’s incredible what these dogs can do.”

Campbell said that the Rotary and the Kiwanis have been working together for the last seven years to fund various community projects, though this is the first year the two clubs have raised money for the K9 program.

“We try to do a different project each year,” he said.

Over the last several years, Campbell said the clubs have raised around $149,000 to provide automated defibrillators for Moses Lake High School and Big Bend Community College, computer for the Boys & Girls Club, and shelves for the Moses Lake Public Library.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.