This annual award honors three Oklahoma REALTORS who go about and beyound to fulfill the needs shown by their community. OAR's Open Door Award is designed to seek out the brightest and best who give unselfishly to impoving the world around them through community service. Von Coburn received this award October 2, 2008.
To Whom It May Concern:
Community leaders come in strange packages, none more surprising that an attractive, professional, holding a mangy puppy who has never felt love. Von Coburn is that woman, which is why I am nominationg her for this award. I have seen her clean kennels in her high heels and stop in traffic to save a puppy. If her heart defined her size she would be ten feet tall.
I met Von when I purchased my house from her. Shortly thereafter I was raising money for the animal shelter expansion and she came to me and asked what she could do to help. I told her well I really need ten thousand more dollars if she could give it to me I could complete the expansion. I laughed and she said okay, I was taken back but not nearly as much as when eigght days later she came back and she had ten thousand dollars. I needed resuscitation; I was shocked that she had gone that far so quickly. THe shelter was built, and we moved on to other projects, again here is Von. What do you want me to do she would ask, and it would be done.
She founded The Friends of Guthrie Animal Shelter which is funded solely by donations. Von plans and executes all fundraising. They pay for all medical expenses for potentially adoptable animals and spay or newuter many of our recently adotoped animals, and thirty four perscent of 1841 were adopted. FOGAS buys vaccines, wormer, supplies, equipment and anything that the shelter needs.
In February of this year I was approached by a Veterinarian out of Stillwater for February's campaign to spay and neuter. This campaign was a low cost spay and neuter clinic hosted at the Guthrie Animal Shelter. Thirty eight animals came through our door that day, and Von paid every expense that the owners could not afford. I know 82 animals which Von has had altered and other medical attention, since January of this year.
Von has made a huge impace by her friends helping neighbors' program. She had taken the time to educate the general public on proper care of animals. This has caused ripple effect on the community. Von hosts "Pet Safari" along with animal control officers. The show is used as a tool to help people to help themselves and their neighbors. Recently one of the topics Von used was how to skunk proof, and wildlife proof your property. This included simple information like removing all debris and mowing the grass. Believe it or not people started doind it and the result was much more attractive properties and happier neighbors. The adoption rate increased twenty percent when Von became the host.
I am proud to be associated with someone who understands the big picture and is willing to go the extra mile to get it done. Von has made the lives of the animals that come through the shelter much more comfortable.
