“My family did everything they could to give me what I needed and make me strive, so I think every kid deserves to be cherished and welcomed—even if they don’t have a family to wake up to on Christmas.”
Christopher Scott of Mathews is a hunting dog enthusiast, so he turned to that passion to raise money and gifts for this goal, collecting $11,000 and a lot of gifts at what he hopes to become an annual Virginia Hound for Christmas Benefit Hunt.
He organized a field trial on Nov. 1 in Sussex County where 110 hunting dogs were entered in an enclosed pen with significant acreage to run foxes, he explained. Judges out in the woods kept track of what order the hounds, who were identifiable by numbers on their sides, crossed a certain point after a fox.
Scott charged $100 per dog entered into the field trial and also raffled off prizes and sold merchandise. “All together so far—with money still coming in, we’ve got around $11,000,” he said.
The benefit had 22 sponsors, both businesses and individuals, that donated, many of which sponsored the raffle prizes. “So, from the first-place dog to the 15-place dog, all together we probably gave away $5,000 in prizes,” he said.
“All of that was free through donations and sponsors,” he said. “The only thing we paid for were the trophies and to rent the pen and that was it. Everybody else donated everything.”
At the hunt, a toy box was set out and was packed full with toys and clothes by the end of the evening, and 15 brand new bicycles were donated, ranging from toddler to full size.
Scott has reached out to surrounding Social Services offices and collected 20 angel trees and plans to go shopping for toys, clothes, and shoes to donate.
Much of Scott’s time went into planning over the past four months, and the amount of excitement and help the community responded with exceeded his expectations. “I think we blew it out of the park because I was not expecting this. My goal was $5,000, so we exceeded that by six grand,” he said.
“My brother is adopted and my family—they always raised me to help others, put others first,” he explained. Scott and his family have seen what children in the foster care system go through, and with the charity benefit, he wanted to offer youngsters, who might not otherwise have much, a Christmas to remember.
He also said he hopes that the charity hound hunt might also help to put a good word out about the hound hunting community. “The dog hunting community has really been frowned upon. People think we’re either hurting dogs or we’re hurting the animal that it’s supposed to be running and truly we’re not—truly that’s what those dogs were bred to do,” he said.
Ultimately, Scott hopes for the Christmas Benefit Hunt to be something the community can look forward to every year.
A list of sponsors, photos from the event and information on donating can be found on Christopher Scott’s own Facebook page.