Matthew Burnette, Staff Writer

Furry friends abounded as Beans Creek Winery hosted their Wags, Whiskers, and Wine event Friday Dec. 6that was far from cat-astrophic.

The winery partnered with the Coffee County Humane Society to hold the adoption drive where attendees could spend the evening drinking their favorite Beans Creek offerings while interacting with several of the Humane Society’s finest felines.

“It’s just a nice place where people can come, they can socialize, they can visit with animals, and then we have the opportunity to possibly adopt a few of the animals out which usually does happen,” said Vera Lund, the dog coordinator and Treasurer at the Humane Society.

Lund says the event came to be after one of their members started talking with some of the Beans Creek staff.

“They work a lot with 501(c)(3)’s, the new general manager there does, and so he brought up that he’d like to have a Saturday afternoon, so we did that about a month and a half ago and it was a wonderful success for them and for us,” Lund explained. “It was when they did their 20 year celebration, so that’s kind of how we got started.”

Jeff Ames, a Marketing Advisor at the winery, concurred on the success of the adoption event that served as the catalyst for the monthly event.

“We had a huge response from the 20th anniversary. It was good for them, and it was great for us,” says Ames. “That’s kind of what spawned this idea was to bring it back and to make it more regular. This is the first one. Once we do it regularly and by switching between cats and dogs, we hope that we get people that come regularly. We want them to drink wine, but we also want them to bring awareness to shelter pets.”

Ames recently decided to step back from a career as a NASCAR photographer and was brought on at Beans Creek to help revitalize the Manchester institution.

“It’s been here a long time, and we want to see it grow and succeed, so anything that we can do to bring people in, that’s what we’ll have,” he explained. “Other than them having a good time knowing that this is a family atmosphere, we’re trying to get people in and have a reason for them to stay and a reason for them to come back. Our wine sells itself.”

A lifelong animal lover with a passion for finding homes for animals in need, Ames says that Coffee County has more pets than there are homes for and hopes that the monthly events will help with that.

“Shelters want to say that they are “no kill,” but we’re getting into a situation where there’s not much more that they can do with them, and so it goes back to trying to find a good home, trying to find a match, and the only way we can do that is to get them out  and get people to mingle with them,” he says. “This was just an idea to put people together with pets that are available and just hopefully something connects.”

Though the ultimate goal of events like Wags, Whiskers, and Wine is to find homes for animals in need, Lund said the Humane Society also finds other benefits.

“The last event we had, we had almost $300 in donations which doesn’t seem like a lot to some, but to us that is a lot, and we pick up volunteers that want to help out,” said Lund.

She also hopes these types of events bring awareness to the community about the animal problem Coffee County currently faces.

“It’s a law problem that we have,” stated Lund. “I hope that it brings awareness to people in the community that they need to get behind Animal Control and the Humane Society and try to change some of the laws and strengthen the laws to help with spaying and neutering animals, animals running at large, and that kind of thing.”

The next Wags, Whiskers, and Wine event will be held on Dec. 20 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Beans Creek Winery and will feature some of the adoptable dogs in need of a home from the Coffee County Humane Society.